Deaths of Members

Baroness Hayman: My Lords, we lost four colleagues during the Recess and it is with great regret that I have to inform the House of the deaths of the noble Lords, Lord Garden, Lord Biffen, Lord Deedes and Lord Gilmour of Craigmillar. On behalf of the whole House, I extend our condolences to the noble Lords' families and friends.

Iraq: Political Asylum

Lord Fowler: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether they will grant political asylum to Iraqis who have worked for the British forces or the United Kingdom Government in Iraq and have applied for such asylum.

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government are extremely grateful for the service of locally employed staff in Iraq and take their security very seriously. The Prime Minister commissioned a ministerial review on 8 August 2007 of assistance that might be offered to members of locally engaged staff in Iraq. The outcome of that review will be announced by the Prime Minister later this afternoon in another place.

Lord Fowler: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. I hear what he says, although perhaps he is aware that the Prime Minister's decision has already been trailed in at least three national newspapers over the weekend—rather more accurately than some other prime ministerial intentions, I hope. Perhaps I may therefore ask the noble Lord a general question of principle: does he accept that Iraqis who have worked for the British in cities such as Basra and Baghdad have put themselves in enormous danger of reprisals and that this country has a moral duty to protect them as well as we can without placing some arbitrary limit on the numbers whom we help?

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I agree entirely that we have a moral obligation to look after people who have worked with our forces abroad. I have been on the ground in Iraq a number of times over the past four years and I have seen what those people have done there. Indeed, the same is true in many places around the world. I agree entirely that we have that moral obligation. I do not know the details of exactly what the Prime Minister is going to say. I have read some of those newspaper reports; I am not sure that I always believe everything that I read in the papers, but I am sure that we will very soon be clear about the reply.

Baroness Northover: My Lords, is the Minister aware that on 20 June Hilary Benn, then the Secretary of State for International Development, gave an assurance to parliamentarians that the Iraqi interpreters had a compelling case for asylum and that he would urgently pursue that? A new Prime Minister arrived and months passed. We might hear something this afternoon, but can the Minister tell the House how many interpreters and members of their families have suffered, and possibly died, as a result of this delay?

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I do not have any statistics or figures on that but, if I may, I shall get back to the noble Baroness in writing. As I say, I believe that we have a moral obligation to look after people who have worked with us. However, we know in this House—probably better than in most places—that the actual detail involved in working out how to do that is extremely difficult. Putting the matter into some form of legislation is very tricky indeed. These people are not refugees—they cannot be refugees—so it is tricky. The matter has been looked at by a ministerial review and there will be an announcement later today that will make this clear.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, are the Iraqi forces in Basra city and elsewhere aware of the situation regarding the people who have been helping us in Iraq? Are they trained on the need to ensure the safety of those people and their families?

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I am not aware whether they have specific instructions. I would be surprised if they had instructions about named people because that would put those people at risk, but I will find out for the noble Baroness and get back to her. I imagine that it is much more a case of the Iraqi forces now becoming responsible for the basic security in the region and on that basis I hope that they would be looking after all their people.

Lord Marsh: My Lords, did the Minister say that these people are not refugees? If they are not, what are they?

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, to be a refugee you cannot be in your country of abode. An Iraqi living in Iraq cannot be considered a refugee by this country. Similarly, if he is in another country, he cannot be a refugee as far as this country is concerned. That is why these people cannot be treated on that basis.

Lord Tebbit: My Lords, I have two questions. The first arises from what the Minister just said: was a Jew in Germany in 1938 or 1939 a refugee? Secondly, do the Government still adhere to the view that a friendly alien likely to be persecuted in his own country by virtue of his political activities, such as being friendly to the British, would qualify for political asylum here?

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, the answer to the first question is that a Jew in those days would not have been a refugee according to the precise definition of the word. That does not mean that one should not try to look after people in some way, but he would not have been a refugee. I do not know exactly what will be in the Statement later today but I am sure that it will say that we will be looking after some of these people, because the Government believe that we have a moral obligation to look after people.

Lord Hughes of Woodside: My Lords, is my noble friend saying that if someone has remained in the country where they are in difficulty, they can be a refugee only when they leave that country? That was precisely the position of the Jews in Germany, who were not refugees until they actually left the country. Is that what he is saying?

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, my noble friend put that much more clearly than I did, and he is absolutely right.

Lord Avebury: My Lords, will the Minister nevertheless confirm that representations have been made by the UNHCR to a number of potential receiving countries about sharing the burden of accepting people who, while not refugees, are at serious risk of persecution and harm in Iraq?

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I am aware that some discussion has taken place, although I do not know the exact details of it. It is interesting to note the numbers of people who have been taken into various countries. The countries around Iraq, which are where most Iraqis who have fled have gone, have to deal with them; they are not refugees in the sense in which we deal with them in this country.

Lord Anderson of Swansea: My Lords, my noble friend is right that the presumption must be that translators and others in roles of that kind should be given refuge, but will he confirm that there will be no abrogation of the normal principle that every case must be viewed on its individual merits? There must be some individuals who have some, but limited, contact with the British forces and who would not, by virtue of that, be entitled to come to the UK.

Lord West of Spithead: My Lords, I shall have to wait for the announcement, because I do not know exactly what will be said. However, the Government firmly believe that we have a moral obligation to look after people who have helped us. I am sure that that will emerge from the Statement later today.

Economy: Gross Domestic Product

Lord Sheldon: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What estimate has been made of the gross domestic product for the years 2007-08 and 2008-09.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the Chancellor will deliver his Pre-Budget Report for 2007 tomorrow. It will include fully updated economic and fiscal forecasts.

Lord Sheldon: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply, but is he aware that the gross domestic product increased by 0.8 per cent in the second quarter of 2007 and that that level was higher than in the previous year? Is he also aware that there was sustained growth in all industries in the second quarter of this year? For some years now, a number of economists have been pessimistic, with little justification for their forecasts. However, as Alan Greenspan said in the Guildhall last Tuesday, although such forecasts are made, governments, quite rightly, do not base their economic decisions on them. Does the Minister agree with that?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend, with his long experience in these matters, for his salient points on the economy. I cannot pre-empt tomorrow's Statement, but the two quarters of 2007 to which my noble friend referred have seen conspicuous growth. Such growth has projected Britain during the past decade from the lowest position in terms of per capita income in the OECD to the second highest. It is internationally recognised that we are in a strong position to face any economic vicissitudes which may occur in the future.

Lord Roberts of Conwy: My Lords, the Chancellor is already reported in the press as anticipating a decline in the rate of growth next year. Was that one of the considerations that led the Prime Minister to contemplating an election?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, both aspects of the noble Lord's question seem to revolve around press comment and conjecture. The Prime Minister made it quite clear at lunchtime today why he intended to continue with his Administration; that is, to establish the confidence of the country in his ability to lead it successfully during the next few years.

Lord Newby: My Lords, does the Minister agree with the managing director of the IMF who said at the weekend that the credit squeeze was a "serious crisis" that would curtail growth internationally? Will he assure the House that, in tomorrow's Statement, which we are delighted is being brought forward, given the exigencies of the economy, a full analysis will be made of the Government's view of the effect of the credit squeeze on future prospects for growth in the UK?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, we can trust the Liberals to pick out the more pessimistic and pejorative of the IMF's comments. The IMF indicated how strong the British economy is. It indicates that, in all ways in which the economy is managed, we are able to face the future with great confidence, against a background where, as the noble Lord rightly observed, aspects of the international economy will cause greater difficulty than in the immediate past. However, the economy and the Government are in the safest of hands.

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords, do the Government accept the OECD view that a rising tax burden results in a slower rate of growth in the economy? Therefore, given how the tax burden has gone up spectacularly under this Government, can we expect that the Chancellor will forecast lower growth than he anticipated?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, we are all delighted to see the Conservative Party returning to type and putting before the nation an agenda consisting solely of tax cutting, which is likely to be exposed as not producing sufficient revenues to sustain the programmes that it wishes to implement.
	The noble Lord referred to the OECD. What did the OECD say about the British economy? In fact, it said that its good economic performance,
	"over the past decade has been underpinned by a willingness to embrace the opportunities offered by globalisation, together with regulatory policies that promote efficiency and economic resilience".
	Could we have a better element of support than that?

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: My Lords, will my noble friend—

Noble Lords: Oh!

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: My Lords, thank you for that warm welcome back. Noble Lords may actually agree with me, in a few moments. Will my noble friend confirm that when Alex Salmond comes predictably gurning and whining after tomorrow's Statement that Scotland has not got enough, he will point out robustly that Scotland is getting its fair share if not a generous share?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am delighted to see my noble friend back. I am enjoined today not in any way to pre-empt or predict the Statement that will be made by the Chancellor tomorrow. However, I think that I can stray into agreeing with my noble friend about his criticism of the leader of the Scottish National Party.

Baroness Noakes: My Lords, when he was Chancellor, the Prime Minister was wont to brag about the 10 years of unbroken economic growth—which, of course, started even earlier than that. However, a report this morning showed that in the past 10 years disposable income as a proportion has fallen to its lowest level since 1997. What is the point of economic growth for ordinary people if they just keep getting poorer?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, they do not keep getting poorer. The noble Baroness will recognise the extraordinary acceleration of the British economy and therefore the British people in terms of per capita income over the past 10 years.

Lord Davies of Coity: My Lords, I wonder whether my noble friend—

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I am sorry but we are into the 15th minute, and I am conscious that we have two full Questions to go.

Energy: Light Bulbs

Lord Dubs: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether they will take steps to increase the use of energy-saving light bulbs within the United Kingdom.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, the number of energy-efficient light bulbs in the UK rose from 26 million in 2000 to 110 million in 2006, but we recognise that more can be done. We are working with energy suppliers, the Energy Saving Trust, retailers and manufacturers to phase out inefficient light bulbs in the UK ahead of our European partners. That is supported by the EU energy labels and the energy-saving recommended labels, which provide consumers with appropriate information.

Lord Dubs: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend. That is pretty good as far as it goes. However, is my noble friend aware that in Australia, for example, of the normal type of light bulbs, one can buy only the energy-saving model? Why cannot we move a bit faster? Climate change is coming at us very quickly. There are a number of measures that we could take with a bit more speed, and I urge my noble friend to see what he can do about that.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, Australia is not a member of the European Union. We cannot act unilaterally. The decisions that we have taken are a voluntary initiative in line with the work with the retailers and the industry. Therefore, we will be ahead of other member states of the European Union but we cannot simply put on an outright ban. It is not that simple, being in the EU.

Lord Redesdale: My Lords, should there not be regulation for the Government to fulfil their plan for phasing out inefficient light bulbs? If no regulation is to be made, I do not see how the Government can enforce the change-over from incandescent light bulbs to energy-saving light bulbs.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, it is not a question of enforcing if we are doing this in conjunction with manufacturers and retailers. Incandescent light bulbs will not be offered by retailers and gradually we will change over. Under this Government, the cost of compact fluorescent light bulbs has gone through the floor; in other words, it has gone down. I understand that they can now be obtained for 39 pence in Morrisons.

Baroness Sharples: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that a lot of these new very efficient bulbs are much too large for the lamps that we have?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, the noble Baroness makes a fair point about the early compact fluorescent light bulbs. They were ugly and did not fit shades. They have now been made to replicate the bulbs they are replacing. If one looks at the range of bulbs available today for ordinary domestic purposes, one can see that the same shape has been maintained. Specialist light bulbs will continue to be produced and, of course, sold.

Lord Tanlaw: My Lords, does the Minister agree that not so many of these light bulbs are sold perhaps because the number of councils which have equipment to deal with the mercury contained in them is not adequate? How many councils have this equipment? In order to get the right sense of proportion, how does the energy saved compare with that which would be saved if the clocks were not changed at the end of this month and we retained summer time as the darker evenings are about to descend on us?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, local authorities are required to have proper disposal arrangements but I fully accept that not every local authority has such arrangements. We should bear in mind that these bulbs last 10 times longer than ordinary bulbs. One can see from the figures I gave earlier that we are just starting to use them. It will be some years before the big replacements come in and the proper disposal has to take place. The mercury should be separated and recovered because it is a toxic substance. On the benefit, I repeat my reply to a Question asked earlier in the year: if every household in the UK changed just one regularly used bulb to an efficient alternative, enough power would be saved to close down one large power station. I am not certain how many power stations we could close down if we did not change the clocks.

Lord Swinfen: My Lords, how much—

Lord Taylor of Holbeach: My Lords, will the Minister please tell the House how far the Government themselves are progressing in the move towards energy-efficient light fittings? What percentage of light fittings in government buildings are converted to energy-efficient light bulbs?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I do not have a figure for the Government or, indeed, for Defra but I assure the noble Lord that, to the best of my knowledge, every room that I have been in in Defra was fitted with energy-saving light bulbs.

Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan: My Lords, can my noble friend confirm that there are light fittings which are inappropriate for energy-saving light bulbs; namely, dimmer switches? A lot of households and offices have them. Before the existing wasteful light bulbs are phased out, there needs to be a proper replacement which can be accommodated within these fitting which are common in many households and buildings.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, my noble friend is quite right. It is for the industry to do this. For example, mechanical security timers that are like a clock with buttons will turn these lights on and off but digital security timers will not work with these bulbs. It is up to the industry to produce the products to go with the bulbs. It is much better for this to be done on a voluntary basis and for the industry to do it in conjunction with retailers, with the full support of the Government, rather than for us to say heavy-handedly that it must be done by a certain date.

Lord Roberts of Llandudno: My Lords, the Minister may remember that in a previous discussion on this point I mentioned the millions of light bulbs used to illuminate many seaside resorts and other tourist attractions. What advice are the Government giving to these local councils so that they replace this type of light bulb with a far more energy-saving light bulb?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, one of the benefits of getting the same Question twice is that you can go back and read what you said the first time. When the noble Lord asked about Blackpool earlier in the year, I said:
	"I am not going to be the Minister who shuts down the Blackpool illuminations".—[Official Report, 14/5/07; col. 9.]
	I said to officials this morning that I could not say that again and that I needed better information. My latest information on the Blackpool illuminations from the industry, which is less than two hours old, is that coloured bulbs are exempt from the phase as they are specialist. Increasingly, illumination bulbs are LED-based—that is, light-emitting diodes which save even more electricity—and illumination organisers will benefit from LED once they become more economical. So, Blackpool illuminations are safe.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, given that low energy light bulbs take some time to warm up to full strength and are therefore potentially dangerous on stairs, halls and landings for those who have less than perfect sight, what advice would my noble friend give to us?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, my noble friend is quite right. When I converted my light bulbs in dark rooms and cupboards under the stairs, I expected the light to come on straight away, and it was quite a shock when it did not. However, things are improving. Bulbs which carry the "energy saving recommended" logo will reach at least 60 per cent of their brightness in 60 seconds. There is a difficulty here. Some cupboards and rooms, such as bathrooms, have no windows and there one needs to have the light on straight away. This matter must be dealt with by the industry.

Millennium Dome

Lord James of Blackheath: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I note my interest as former chairman of the Dome company, although the subject matter of this Question was excluded from my terms of reference at the time.
	The Question was as follows:
	To ask Her Majesty's Government how they will divide any revenue from the sale or lease of the Millennium Dome between the millennium lottery commission and the owners of the land, English Partnerships.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, English Partnerships, the national regeneration agency, will retain the first £30 million of development receipts. Thereafter, 13 per cent will be passed to the National Lottery. Of the £550 million forecast cash proceeds from the deal, English Partnerships currently estimates that the lottery is likely to receive a total of approximately £67 million phased over the next 15 years. This arrangement for the division of proceeds was announced to Parliament in 2004.

Lord James of Blackheath: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. My understanding was that the original value of the land was £450 million, which is less than the value that the noble Baroness has just indicated would be created over time. Will she indicate how the annual return to the taxpayer will perform during that time? What will be the effective annual rate of interest on the outstanding balance, or reducing balance, of £450 million standing in the interest of the taxpayer, which is otherwise lost to the use of the community?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, as I do not have that sort of detail in my very extensive briefing, I will write to the noble Lord. In terms of the value to the taxpayer and the regeneration of the peninsula—I pay tribute to the noble Lord for the sterling work that he did on winding up the NMEC and making such a success of it—we are looking to a major regeneration project. It will generate £4 billion of private investment, 10,000 homes, 24,000 jobs, commercial floor space, schools and health centres. It is a magnificent prospect for the Greenwich peninsula, which is one of the most deprived parts of London.

Business

Lord Grocott: My Lords, it is good to be back. With the leave of the House, two Statements are scheduled for later today. They will be taken at a convenient time after 4 pm. The first Statement will be repeated by my noble friend Lady Ashton, on Iraq. The second will be repeated by my noble friend Lord Rooker, and it is entitled "Update on foot and mouth disease and bluetongue".

Deputy Chairmen of Committees

Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That Baroness Anelay of St Johns be appointed a member of the Panel of Deputy Chairmen of Committees, in the place of Lord Cope of Berkeley.—(The Chairman of Committees.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Select Committees

Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
	Moved, That Baroness Anelay of St Johns be appointed a member of the following committees, in the place of Lord Cope of Berkeley: Administration and Works, Privileges, Procedure and Selection.—(The Chairman of Committees.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

Report received.

Baroness Hanham: moved Amendment No. 1:
	Clause 2, page 2, line 7, leave out "or direct any" and insert "a relevant"

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, as the gallery departs, perhaps I may say that, in addition to moving the amendment, I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 6, 9, 12 to 16, 18, 23, 49, 50 and 51.
	It is a great pleasure to be back after the Recess and to be taking part once again in the local government Bill. I had, as I suspect most other noble Lords had, a blinding flash of hope that we might all be denied having to come here at all—in which case, I could have given myself a week off and not had to deal with this and the two other Bills coming my way this week. However, wiser counsels seem to have prevailed—otherwise I might have been exchanging places with the noble Baroness rather swiftly and be considering the Bill from the other side. However, hope fails and I am moving the amendment.
	This opening debate takes us to the heart of the first part of the legislation, to the heart of the principles of reinvigorating democracy and to transposing power and local decisions back to local people—which is what we understand this Bill to be all about. The Minister says that that is what the Bill intends to do—in fact, we spent a long time in Committee debating that aspect—giving power to the people. We are told that that is what the Prime Minister wants the Bill to do. Of course, the Prime Minister has been changed since the Bill was introduced and we still hope that the new Prime Minister has the same view of this Bill and that it is being executed under the joy of his hand. However, transposing power to local communities is one thing that the Bill does not do. As it stands, it will not succeed in its stated aim of reinvigorating the democratic process.
	These amendments address two issues: first, the power of the Secretary of State to issue directions relating to the reorganisation of local government, which we oppose, and, secondly, the power of the Secretary of State to issue either directions or invitations to any local authority. As I made clear in Committee, the Government claim that the ethos of the Bill is to enable local authorities to improve their own structures of government. Indeed, all the Government's rhetoric places the emphasis on giving local authorities power to take their own initiatives. But, as usual, the rhetoric is a far cry from reality.
	I have re-tabled these amendments to give the Minister another opportunity to confirm her statement in Committee that the principle of the first part of the Bill is improvement and restructuring by invitation. The Minister noted that this part of the Bill was an invitation-only realm. She went on to say:
	"The Government are imposing nothing on local authorities".—[Official Report, 5/7/07; col. 1146.]
	I accept that the current orders for local authority restructuring fall into the category of coming about by invitation or in response to an invitation—not by direction. Whether by invitation or direction, the proposals in most of the nine local authorities affected are far from uncontroversial. In spite of the Minister's words, it is loud and clear that the power remains in the Bill for the Secretary of State to issue a direction to local authorities to form unitary councils—in other words, to order them to dissolve and reform as unitary authorities.
	While Clause 3 is limited in that regard until the end of January 2008, nothing in the Bill would prevent the Secretary of State before then from issuing an order or direction against the will of the majority of councils in any given area, let alone making a direction against the wishes of the electorate in the area, because the Bill does not yet provide for proper consultation with the electorate. We shall return to that matter later. The key issue is the power that the Bill gives to the Secretary of State to alter local government by direction. I am sure that the Minister, with her goodwill and optimism, believes 100 per cent that the Government, having not issued a direction so far, will not do so in the future.
	To some extent, this is a matter of trust. But unfortunately legislation cannot always be built on trust because it can be used thereafter not just by those of us who have seen it through, but by others. It will therefore not come as a surprise to the Minister that we on these Benches want such a guarantee to be included in the Bill and the power to give directions in the future abolished.
	Indications about which authorities will be re-formed have caused a lot of damage over the summer. As I said in Committee, the trouble is that some people in the areas being considered want it to happen and some do not; the issue is controversial. That is a pity, but it is not too late to change that particular aspect.
	The Government seek to introduce a new process of structuring local government. Instead of testing the likely success and popularity—essential agreements in the overhaul of local government—in Parliament, and more importantly, through proper consultation, they have set in motion a process that goes before the legislation that mandates it in law. I do not know whether this situation is unique, but it must be pretty close. The legislation is almost useless to prevent what is happening because everything is happening before the legislation has had proper scrutiny in Parliament.
	It is deeply disappointing to have to depict the situation in that way. I wish that it had not come to this and that Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council, Congleton Borough Council and Harrogate Borough Council were not all seeking judicial reviews. Throughout the country there has been outrage at grass roots level at the speed of this reconstruction process. However, that is the reality.
	Nobody actually believes that this part of the Bill will cease in January 2008 or that these nine newly proposed authorities will be the end of it—far too much has gone into this for the Government just to sneak away. I ask the Minister not to ignore these amendments and hope that at least this aspect of direction will be dropped from the Bill in due process. I beg to move.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market: My Lords, we on these Benches did not add our names to the amendments, not because we do not have some sympathy with the point of view expressed by the noble Baroness, but because our concerns are rather differently focused. I will say more about that when we debate amendments tabled in my name and that of my noble friend.
	I have a lot of sympathy with the views expressed by the noble Baroness on the Conservative Benches. We have a problem. The authorities that we are currently discussing have been chosen in a process that is to some extent outside the law because we are debating the law now and it has not yet been passed. While there may not technically be an issue of retrospection—I am not a lawyer and do not know whether there is or not—a process has been started that cannot be finished until we pass the Bill. As we are approaching the end of the parliamentary Session and there is some panic to get this measure through, we find ourselves in a highly unsatisfactory situation where a group of local authorities are a long way down the road toward unitary status without a legal framework to back that up.
	To make it worse, it is not only the absence of a legal framework that causes us difficulty but the absence of a policy framework to underpin that. We in this House, in another place and, more importantly, in local government, do not understand what the Government want from local government with regard to unitary councils. Therefore, the situation is highly unsatisfactory. On these Benches we have taken a pragmatic view. Local authorities that are already in the process of restructuring are where they are. I recognise that there is a good deal of unhappiness and I shall discuss some of that in detail when we come to later amendments. Nevertheless, they have entered a process and gone a long way down the road and we believe that it would be irresponsible of us to do anything to prevent them moving forward now.
	However, that does not mean that we believe the Bill will provide a satisfactory framework for local authorities in the future. We certainly do not want to keep revisiting the same problems on more and more local authorities as time progresses and therefore we have tabled later amendments to deal with the question of timing. However, for now, I simply place on the record for the House the general unease that we on these Benches have about the process. I should also be interested to know whether the noble Baroness has heard any more about how the current judicial reviews are progressing.

Viscount Eccles: My Lords, in Committee I briefly drew attention to the constitutional issue affecting the use of directions. All the literature and, indeed, all the precedents show that directions are meant to be used in extreme circumstances when things have broken down between the parties and the Secretary of State needs to step in or for administrative matters. In Committee, the Minister said that there might be some hold-up—I think that that was the trend of her remarks—and that it might be necessary to push the process along, and that was why there was a need to put directions in the Bill. Constitutionally, that is a precedent. I have asked whether there are other precedents but I have not had a satisfactory reply. However, I do not believe that there are any.
	As the House knows, directions are a form of secondary legislation. They are not subject to any parliamentary procedure and they should not be used, in the words of the marriage settlement, lightly. I am sure that in this case that has happened. If you add to that the comments about the process starting and proceeding in advance of the passing of the Bill, then it is most unfortunate that directions have been included. I am extremely surprised that the legal services available to the Government have allowed that to happen and I hope that they will be withdrawn.

Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, we return to a common problem. Regardless of what appears to a Government to be a solution—not necessarily to a problem but in response to the need for change—some people and some authorities will agree and some will not. The dilemmas facing a Government or anyone in authority are: to what extent does the tail wag the dog; to what extent is progress delayed until there is common agreement; or, at what stage do a Government exercise the powers that they have in order to make progress?
	I am sure that the Minister has answers to some of the direct and pertinent points that are being raised but I cannot believe that the Government will make progress or insist on making progress in the face of sizeable opposition. That does not mean that the minority is entitled to have its view taken into account all the time. However, if we live in a democracy and if, although there may be reluctance to change, it is accepted that ultimately it may be for the benefit of the majority, then I fail to see why at the end of the day, whenever that might be, the Government should not have some power to insist on progress. Therefore, I should be interested to hear from the Government how they intend to deal with this problem.

Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, perhaps I may intervene for a moment to ask the Minister what the need is for the change that she talks about. The French structure of local government has not changed since Napoleon. The French have something like 38,000 separate municipalities, which manage to work together extremely efficiently, effectively and well without all this constant ferment. That is one example from what I would call a fairly radical wing of European local government.
	The United States is in a similar situation. It has a very stable structure in local government. It has states, cities, municipalities and counties with known powers. It does not keep changing the structures, although it may change the way in which bodies work together, which can be done very easily. It is simply a matter of responsible local bodies taking a responsible view of their capacity to deal with problems, alone or co-operatively. Those arrangements are made ad hoc, without regulation.
	I have never quite understood why, for the past 40 years, we in this country have had such a passion for structural change. Having sat on the other side of the argument in local government for much of that time, I have concluded that very often those who run our national affairs do not think that they have enough sufficiently serious matters to occupy them, so they tinker with the structure of local government, keeping everyone in a state of ferment so that they cannot properly do what they are supposed to do on behalf of those whom they serve. The real problem behind this so-called need for change is that it is a massive distraction from the proper provision of services to local communities. I say with my hand on my heart that the intellectual effort that goes into dealing with this subject in every authority at every level is beyond anything that is put into service provision. In my view, that is a disgrace and the longer the argument is perpetuated the worse things will become.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I echo the opening statement of the noble Baroness about how nice it is to be back dealing with the local government Bill. I welcome everyone back, refreshed, sharpened and focused, to the Report stage.
	Some large issues have been raised in the opening statements on this group of amendments. It is probably worth responding first to the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, who concluded his argument by referring to the matter raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, about why we are doing this. I can absolutely assure the noble Lord that no one is more conscious than the Government are of how much effort goes into restructuring and that the object is and must be about better services. That is exactly where we started from and exactly why we started with a process that is different from the previous process in 1992. The process was driven by an invitation to local authorities to consider moving towards unitary status.
	I do not know enough about the French system but I do not think that the French have duplication of functions or confusions over which authority collects waste and which deals with it, or whether there are any two separate mandates held for a single area, which is what we have with the two-tier system. In some areas the system has been made to work well, but we have always known that it has been flawed, because it builds in conflict and duplication of functions.
	We started from the presumption that if there were an opportunity to move towards that new system, local authorities would give us their arguments on whether they wanted to, against the criteria that we set very clearly: better leadership, better neighbourhood engagement, better services and all the things that we know make a crucial difference to improving local areas. We looked for a broad range of support on that.
	We wanted to open, by invitation rather than imposition, a path to better services; we wanted to do it in a way that enabled local government not to embrace change for change's sake, but to take advantage of what it thought was an opportunity to set out a new way forward. Twenty-six local authorities came forward; 16 were invited to go forward for further consultation and we have ended up with the Secretary of State agreeing to nine proposals.
	The process has been open and transparent. The debate has been conducted in every conceivable form of public arena, and that takes time. The noble Baroness says that there is outrage at the speed. She will hear me say again during this debate that the reason why we did what we were asked to do in this way—the invitation was sent out under the common-law powers of the Secretary of State—was that we were urged by everybody not to have a protracted process, but to make progress. We therefore did it in a way that we thought would be democratic, legal and effective, because it was consulted on.
	I appreciate what the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said about local government being where it is. Indeed, it is where it is with our nine proposals. I obviously cannot say much about the judicial review, but we expect a result shortly. I should also say that it is not entirely unpredictable that councils that are disappointed or aggrieved have sought to make legal complaint. In 1992, in the previous reorganisation, there were no fewer than 30 judicial reviews from councils that felt that their interests had been overlooked or ignored on whatever grounds. Change generates disturbance and difficulties. That is where we are.
	I hope that that takes us into the narrower debate on the powers of direction. The purpose is very clear, as the noble Baroness said. The amendments would remove the Secretary of State's power to direct any principal authority to make a proposal under Clause 2, by way of inserting the word "relevant", so that the Secretary of State may only invite a relevant principal council rather than exercising the power of direction.
	Briefly and I hope for the last time, I shall run through the key provisions that will enable this to happen. It is a devolutionary structure, as I have explained. The provisions in Part 1 of the Bill replace the structural and boundary change provisions in the Local Government Act 1992. Clauses 1 to 7 make provision about the invitation process for effecting structural change; Clauses 8 to 10 provide for boundary changes, which are wholly separate from the current round of restructuring; and Clauses 11 to 30 provide for the implementation of both forms of change and the necessary supplementary provision. They enable the Government to invite—or, until 25 January 2008, as clearly stated in Clause 3, direct—proposals from local authorities for structural change. Consider the change from the 1992 Act, when the Electoral Commission was asked to direct the Boundary Committee to consider whether there should be a move to unitary structures and to make recommendations. We are a million miles from that. Yes, it is indeed a process of invitation. The logic is followed by what I will say—which I think will meet the concerns of the noble Viscount, Lord Eccles—about the circumstances under which we would hypothetically have to seek a direction.
	Noble Lords are no doubt asking why, if this is so devolutionary, we need a power to direct at all. That is the crucial question. The answer is that the limited power of direction in the Bill is necessary to ensure that we are able to bring the present round of restructuring to an orderly conclusion. The idea that we are somehow going to extend this or rush through a power of direction rather than an invitation in the next few months, as the noble Baroness suggested, is rather a fantasy. We were aware of concerns about the original power. We worked with the LGA to limit the scope so that it cannot be used beyond 25 January 2008.
	It might help the House if I give a short example of a hypothetical situation where it might be necessary to use the power. I am not saying that it is necessary at all; I hope that noble Lords will understand, when I come to the end of this description, why it would not be necessary. In July, we said that we were minded to implement the unitary proposal for Bedford borough on the basis that there was a satisfactory unitary proposal for the rest of the area. We announced that we would be inviting Bedfordshire County Council, Mid Bedfordshire District Council and the South Bedfordshire District Council to put forward a unitary proposal for the remaining area of Bedfordshire, excluding Bedford borough. I should emphasise that we intend to invite these councils to make a proposal. However, if the Secretary of State were to feel that she would be unlikely to receive a proposal in response to this invitation, she may decide to direct a proposal from the local authorities concerned.
	We are on record as saying—and I can again give the commitment—that this is a very limited power, which would be used only where it is necessary to deal with a residual area in order to make sense of a unitary proposal that is currently proceeding towards implementation. It does not force any particular new structure on an area—quite the contrary. It requires the councils in an area to decide the new structure that they want. I admit that it leads to the area having to move towards unitary status, but it is interesting that in the responses that we have had to these proposals the principle of unitary status has not been challenged. People want unitary status, where they have come forward. However, we have been clear that we will use this power only where it is necessary to round off a unitary proposal that we have already received and accepted. In other words, we would require councils to make a move to unitary structures only where it is necessary for other councils to be able to implement the unitary proposal that they have chosen to put forward. It is surely better to give a council the opportunity to do that rather than going straight to advice from the Boundary Committee.
	In the case of Bedfordshire, would it be right that Bedford borough could not adopt the unitary structure that makes good sense for the people of Bedford simply because the other councils in Bedfordshire were unwilling to consider a unitary future? However, that is a pessimistic scenario; from the evidence that we have in the case of Bedfordshire, we firmly expect all the councils concerned to respond, perhaps with some enthusiasm, to the invitation that we propose to issue shortly.
	I reiterate that this is a limited power for specific circumstances. It follows from, and is independent of, the invitation. I hope that noble Lords will feel reassured that the limits on the way in which it might be used do not open the door to anything more.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, we have had an interesting opening debate on this issue. I am grateful to all noble Lords who spoke and for the support—maybe limited support—from the noble Baroness, Lady Scott.
	The fact that a sunset clause was put into the Bill in the House of Commons indicates how much concern there was that this power would go on interminably. As it is, unless we can get this matter changed, it will go on interminably by invitation because at the moment there is nothing to stop that.
	Secondly, we are dealing in an Alice in Wonderland world because the legislation before us is being implemented as we speak. As the Minister said, the Secretary of State has already indicated to nine authorities that she is minded to approve their becoming unitaries. I think that agreement has been given to six authorities and further information on the financial aspects has been required from another three. To try to pretend that this is going through in a peaceful and calm way in those nine authorities is not Alice in Wonderland but cloud-cuckoo-land, because where the invitation has been accepted and schemes have been put forward it would be hard to say that the tip of the iceberg is calm; what the hell is going on underneath is very big and people are quite upset about it. Even with these nine authorities, this is not peaceful and non-controversial. It is very controversial. The decision about these will be made by affirmative order, so presumably we will have an opportunity to see these cases again—I hope that we will see them again individually. The Minister nods. I take that as acceptance that each order will be laid individually. That will give us an opportunity—

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I cannot be absolutely sure about that. Certainly the House will have an opportunity to debate the orders. It is possible that similar ones could be grouped. We do not know yet. At this point I would not like to give a categorical assurance that they will all be separate.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I accept the Minister's limited nodding as a limited response on that. I stick to my point that this is not uncontroversial; it is controversial. The direction, although limited, is still in the Bill. It should come out of the Bill. It is not required; it clearly has not been required in these stages. We also want to be absolutely clear that this process will not carry on at various authorities in bits and pieces. This is not about reorganisation or restructuring in general; it is about restructuring for very particular reasons in very particular local areas where nobody, or very few people, actually agree with it. Therefore, I think that we should remove this direction. I am not going to press the matter to a vote today, but I make it clear that our view is that the direction should not be included. I thank the Minister for her reply and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Hanham: moved Amendment No. 2:
	Clause 2, page 2, line 11, leave out paragraph (c)

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 and 25. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, has Amendment No. 21 in the group. This group of amendments performs one simple function; it rules out the possibility of type C proposals, or those proposals that would create a new local authority, the boundary of which would spill across county boundaries, forcing people to be counted as part of a different county from the one with which they identify. It would make sure that the provision is removed from the Bill.
	Ancient boundaries and identities hundreds of years old could face extinction under the type C powers. As the Minister said, tidying up is the byword for these powers to ensure that local authorities can be constructed in the way the Government feel would be included in the interests of the local area. The Minister justified the reasonableness of including type C proposals just because other types of proposal were also included: it was a wholesale batch of ideas.
	We do not think that anything justifies the need for these type C proposals. They have not come about even by the invitations that have been issued so far, although I dare say it is possible that if conclusions were reached on some of those bodies making applications it could come about, and we believe that it should not.
	There has been no mention of these proposals in the Government's policy proposal document Councils' Proposal for Unitary Local Government: An Approach to Implementation, in the Minister's response in Committee, or in the Minister's letter sent over the summer. In the complete absence of any substantive justification for the inclusion of type C proposals, I hope that the Minister will see the sense of accepting our amendments. I beg to move.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market: My Lords, my Amendment No. 21 seeks to do the same thing as the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness. I am coming at this from a slightly different angle. I do not in principle have any objection to the idea that two local authorities may want to merge and that they may be across a border. Not all existing borders are ancient and not all command that sort of loyalty, so I can see where a case might be made. My confusion about this provision is simply that we were given assurances in another place and in Committee that this piece of legislation was really intended only to apply to those local authorities which were currently in the frame for reorganisation. As none of those includes a proposal that extends across borders—none of them is a type C authority—not one of them will, even when you look at the knock-on effects, involve any cross-border reorganisation. I therefore cannot see why the provision is in the Bill and why it needs to remain, unless the Bill is intended to create the framework for further restructuring, in which case the assurances that we have been given so far are pretty meaningless.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, we have returned to a question that was raised in Committee. I can advance the argument a little further, for reasons that will become clear. Let me briefly explain why the requirement is needed. On the progressive point made by the noble Baroness about the future, the amendments would certainly limit the kind of unitary proposals that councils would be able to make in response to invitations. Specifically, were the amendments to be accepted, councils would only have the option of submitting a proposal that was contained within a county area, whether a county unitary based on the existing county boundary or a sub-county unitary for part of the area. They would not be able to propose a unitary council that crossed existing county boundaries.
	We have made it clear on countless occasions that we are not telling councils what to do. Councils will have to submit their own proposals and they are best placed to propose a model that works for their local area. So we have to provide the maximum flexibility to invite and implement structures that make the greatest sense for local areas.
	The noble Baroness is right: we have said and continue to say that we do not believe that there is a case for restricting the options open to councils in that way. That is the overriding principle. The only proviso is that any new unitary should use existing district boundaries as the building blocks.
	The Bill will allow local authorities a wide range of options to put forward proposals for unitary local government. Crucially, they will not be constrained in considering how best to administer local government functions in their areas. At previous stages, noble Lords were concerned that people identify with shire counties and that cross-unitary proposals would be unlikely to command public support. Noble Lords said that there is still confusion where some of the shire counties became London boroughs. I remember the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, who is not in his place today, making a powerful statement to that effect. However, as the noble Baroness says, not all boundaries are old anyway. As I have stated, because this is devolutionary, it is not for us to restrict proposals but to allow sufficient choice because that may be the best solution for an area.
	Noble Lords are right that no cross-unitary proposals are currently proceeding toward implementation. Significantly, although it did not proceed towards implementation, we received a cross-county boundary proposal from East Riding, proposing a unitary authority comprising East Riding and Selby district council, part of the county of North Yorkshire. So it is not beyond the bounds of possibility. In addition, if an area has undergone significant population and housing growth that results in the unitary boundary for that area no longer making sense, we might need to issue an invitation to enable councils to propose a new unitary area that crossed existing boundaries—again, a type C proposal. That is a potential eventuality.
	When we debate the invitation itself, I shall explain at more length that there are no proposals for major rounds of invitations, but we recognise that, in exceptional situations, there may be appetite for change where it would be right to respond to a focused and targeted invitation. I will talk about that when we debate later amendments.
	For the moment, on these amendments and in this situation, I hope noble Lords will accept that all we are doing is providing for a choice, which was validated because in the end we had a proposal in the final washout.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, it is interesting to know from the Minister what happened to the areas not included in the proposals. One of the effects of crossing boundaries—to which the noble Baroness has referred in the past—will be that the Boundary Committee will do the tidying up. There could be a great deal of tidying-up if county council boundaries were breached. I should be very interested to know the remaining proposals from that part of the country which would enable the proposal put forward. Perhaps it has not gone ahead because it was too complicated.
	Let us be clear—these proposals are ad hoc and not a generalised restructuring across the country. As I said before, a small number of proposals are being put forward, not even for the same parts of the country—they are just spattered across the country. Where there are breaches in one area and on one border, precedents for others begin to be set up. If invitations continue to be put out, there is potential for this to happen more and more.
	I was very interested in what the Minister said about Yorkshire and the fact that my noble friend Lord Eccles, who is in his place, did not leap in at the mere mention of Yorkshire. I omitted to thank him for his contribution on the previous amendment. I thank the Minister for her reply. For today's purposes, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendments Nos. 3 to 8 not moved.]
	Clause 3 [Invitations, directions and proposals: supplementary]:
	[Amendment No. 9 not moved.]

Baroness Hanham: moved Amendment No. 10:
	Clause 3, page 3, line 2, leave out subsection (1) and insert—
	"(1) Neither a direction nor an invitation under section 2 may be issued or given after 25 January 2008."

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I have introduced Amendment No. 10 at this stage in order to do what I have been hinting at during the previous two amendments; that is, to have this whole part of the Bill limited to completion by January 2008. The running on of these proposals will cause concern within local authorities, instability and insecurity. The Government have probably done enough harm with these proposals without them going on for any longer.
	If the invitation to form these new authorities is not and has not been issued by now, when will it be? For how long does the Minister see this invitation and legislation continuing? The refusal so far to confirm when an invitation to change governance may be issued leaves local authorities not wanting to change in limbo. It leaves all the cards in the Government's hands and none in those of local government. It is not a million miles away from the changing attitudes to governance.
	The invitation should be included in the 25 January 2008 sunset clause. We should see an end to this enterprise and security for all local authorities. All local authorities not invited so far should not be left with a feeling that at some stage they may be invited to do so. As I have said previously, the Minister may not understand the chaos caused and ill feelings created in authorities that do not want it, but are being included in the proposal. We ought to draw a line under this and include invitations in the sunset clause. I beg to move.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market: My Lords, Amendment No. 11 seeks to do pretty much the same as Amendment No. 10 moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham. I return to the remarks I made at the introduction of the first group of amendments; namely, that there is no discernible government vision for moving forward on the framework and structure of local government in this country. What we have is something of a free-for-all, and it is disingenuous to suggest that this is entirely a matter for local choice. Taking the example just used by the Minister, while it may meet the aspirations of the people of Bedford, as the urban conurbation will provide them with a unitary authority, it looks like the neighbouring area will have precious little choice over how it is structured. That decision will be foisted on it either because of the pressure of dealing with services once the urban centre is taken out or because the Secretary of State eventually exercises her discretion and uses her power to direct. So other areas actually do not have a choice and many local authorities will face the worst of both worlds. If neighbouring authorities decide to use the provisions of this Bill, they will be affected.
	That would not matter so much if there was a clear understanding of what the Government are seeking to achieve, but the fact that this feels so arbitrary is unsettling for local authorities. While I do not expect noble Lords or anyone else to feel sympathy for local authorities per se, the fact is that a huge amount of energy goes into this sort of exercise, energy that is diverted away from the core functions of local government in delivering services. What is more, it makes partnership working, which the Government regard as so important, almost impossible. Council is set against council in a process that is not well understood and apparently has no timetable.
	When this Bill came to your Lordships' House, it was accompanied by what seemed to be a clear commitment on the part of the Government that its provisions would apply only to those local authorities which have currently volunteered for restructuring. Clearly, there will be knock-on effects on local authorities that do not want to be restructured; indeed, they are what the noble Lord, Lord Graham, referred to as "collateral damage". If we accept progress in some areas, we have to accept that other areas will not get what they want. Members on these Benches have taken a pragmatic view and we accept that we are where we are and that these authorities have moved forward. However, that does not make it right for the future. The Minister referred to the fact that these provisions may result in invitations being given in the future, and that worries us. With no clear structure or well understood endgame, these proposals will remain on the table and local authorities up and down the country will focus their efforts on restructuring without really understanding what they are seeking to achieve and whether they have any chance of success. At a fundamental level, that can only be bad for local authorities, and what is worse, it is bad for the people they represent because the authorities will not be focused on their work.
	Amendment No. 11 would do what we thought we had already done: that is, it would limit the provisions of this Bill to the current round and the immediate knock-on effects. If a future restructuring is envisaged, we ought to have another Bill that is not in any way retrospective and is firmly embedded in a government view for the structure of local government.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I appreciate the seriousness with which noble Lords have addressed these amendments and it behoves me to try to give as much reassurance as possible on the scenario presented by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, of a very unsettled future for local government. Nothing is further from our thoughts, as I shall explain when I respond.
	I dispute the suggestion that there has not been a framework or a policy. In the whole approach, the imperative was that we would be responsive to the potential wish of local authorities to move towards unitary status. We did that by invitation, and the criteria, the timetable and the process were very clear. I am not sure what else we could have done to signal our willingness to listen to whatever local authorities would come forward with.
	Under Amendment No. 10, we would be unable to issue any further invitations to councils for unitary proposals beyond the end of January 2008. In other words, we would not be able, for example, to issue a further invitation in order to make sense of Bedfordshire in relation to the proposal that we have received from Bedford borough. We cannot accept the amendments not out of perversity or any hidden agenda, but because they would impose a complete lack of flexibility on local government. I referred to Bedford in relation to the first group of amendments and explained why it is essential that we are able to invite the rest of the authorities in an area. It is essential that the invitation power remains on the statute book and that we retain the ability, under exceptional circumstances, to respond to a local authority that in the future may want to seek unitary status.
	Let me explain. I made it clear during the passage of the Bill, in the letters that I wrote to noble Lords on two separate occasions over the summer and in the meetings that I have had with them—and I am grateful to them for being willing to talk about and share some of the issues with me—that we have no plans for a future rolling programme of restructuring involving further major rounds of invitations. But we have to recognise the reality that there may be areas where, in the future, there is a specific and definite appetite for change and where it would be right to have the capacity to issue a focused and targeted invitation to the councils concerned in exceptional circumstances.
	The first and most obvious circumstance would be to make sense of a recommendation for boundary change. As I said on a previous amendment, when reviewing an area, the Boundary Committee may form the view that a unitary district council needs to expand its boundaries due to population or housing growth, and it may be necessary to expand the boundaries to such a degree that the remaining area of a two-tier district council was no longer viable. But Clause 8 prevents the Boundary Committee from recommending the replacement of a two-tier area with a single-tier area as a consequence of altering the boundary of a unitary council. In that situation, where there is a strong case for structural change—an imperative case stemming from a boundary change—Clauses 1 to 7 would enable the Government to invite the local authority in that area to come forward with a proposal that it believed made sense for the local area.
	Alternatively—these are the situations with which the noble Baroness is concerned—it might be the case in a two-tier area that the councils come to the conclusion that a unitary approach would be best. They could then ask the Secretary of State for an invitation and it would be open to the Secretary of State to invite them to put forward proposals. We have to leave the door open for such an eventuality, much as the Local Government Act 1992 left provisions for future changes on the statute book.
	But I stress to the noble Baroness that we do not seek a wide-open door; this is not a revolving door or a recipe for local authorities to come back and forth with proposals for unitary status. I do not want authorities to misunderstand this. I do not want them to think that they can keep working away, in the way described by noble Lords, at unitary plans rather than improving services. It would be a debilitating process if they took their eyes away from the improvement of their services, which is what they should be concerned about. That is not our intention and it will not be the case.
	That is why I say this is a limited application. Any invitation would have to have a very good case behind it, and would have to be targeted and focused. Maintaining the power to invite and implement proposals simply allows us to respond to such local circumstances. I assure noble Lords that we will not be encouraging invitations willy-nilly. It is not about issuing them on an arbitrary basis or encouraging anyone to follow whatever their neighbours may do. Even if a situation arises where an invitation is offered, it is entirely up to the local authority to come forward. However, as I say, these are exceptional circumstances.
	There is an important precedent on the statute book in the 1992 Act. We could have used that process in respect of any area, but it would have involved requesting the Electoral Commission to direct the Boundary Committee to undertake a structural review. That would have meant the committee would consider, having regard to any guidance issued by the Government, whether unity governance was right for the area and, if so, what it should be. That is the process that we have tried to reverse by making it locally driven.
	I hope that I have done enough to reassure noble Lords on both sides that they should not fear that the power will be used arbitrarily as a vehicle for unsettling local government. I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, that this is not a comfortable process; change of this sort is not. I understand, having read the papers and listened to local authorities, that there are difficulties for those who have to go through the process when these recommendations are made, but this is not an arbitrary invitation.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that response, but I do not agree with her. The problem is that once anything is in legislation, however much we might like to keep our fingers crossed and hope that it will be used only in the way that the Minister describes, it can be used as it is used. The fact that there is a possibility of an invitation being issued far in the future means that many could be issued if the Government chose to do some restructuring in that way. It is an unhappy situation that we are not bringing this particular aspect of the Bill to an end. It would have been nice to have done so before everything else started at the beginning, since we are to some extent dealing with retrospective legislation, but I hear what the Minister says. I see that everyone is piling up for the next business, and I therefore beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Iraq

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, with the leave of the House, I wish to repeat a Statement made earlier today by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister:
	"Mr Speaker, the Statement that I wish to make today is to set out detailed proposals for political reconciliation and economic reconstruction in Iraq, for the security of the Iraqi people, the future configuration and security of our own Armed Forces, and about the obligations that we owe to the local Iraqi staff who have supported us in our efforts."I start, as the whole House would want me to, by paying tribute to the seven members of our Armed Forces who since July have lost their lives in action in Iraq: Corporal Stephen Edwards, Private Craig Barber, Leading Aircraftman Martin Beard, Lance Sergeant Christopher Casey, Lance Corporal Kirk Redpath, Sergeant Mark Stansfield and Sergeant Eddie Collins. I want to pay tribute also to the 18 who have died in Afghanistan: Lance Corporal Alex Hawkins, Guardsman David Atherton, Sergeant Barry Keen, Lance Corporal Michael Jones, Captain David Hicks, Private Tony Rawson, Private Aaron James McClure, Private Robert Graham Foster, Private John Trumble, Private Damian Wright, Private Ben Ford, Private Johan Botha, Private Brian Tunnicliffe, Senior Aircraftman Christopher Bridge, Sergeant Craig Brelsford, Corporal Ivano Violino, Colour Sergeant Phillip Newman and Major Alexis Roberts. They died doing vital work in the service of our country. We owe them, and others who have lost their lives, a deep debt of gratitude. They will never be forgotten. I also send our wholehearted sympathy to the families of those who have fallen, and to the injured and their families. "Our strategy as a Government in Iraq has been, first, to bring together the political groupings in Basra and across Iraq as part of a process of political reconciliation; secondly, to ensure that the security of the Iraqi people and the new Iraqi democracy is properly safeguarded, as well as the security of our own Armed Forces; and, thirdly, to work for an economy in Iraq where people have a stake in the future. "Our strategy is founded on the UN mandate that was renewed last November in UN Security Council Resolution 1723. Whatever disagreements there have been about our decision to go to war, there can be little disagreement about the unanimous UN position affirming the right of the Iraqi people freely to determine their own political future and,
	'calling upon the international community, particularly countries in the region and Iraq's neighbours, to support the Iraqi people in their pursuit of peace, stability, security, democracy, and prosperity'.
	"I therefore affirm, as I told Prime Minister Maliki last week, and as I have agreed with President Bush and our other allies, that we will meet our obligations, honour our commitments and discharge our duties to the international community and to the people of Iraq."The future depends first of all on sustained progress on political reconciliation. That is why, when I met Prime Minister Maliki and Vice-President Hashemi in Baghdad last week, I said that it was vital—and they agreed—that the 3 plus 1 leadership group of the Prime Minister and Presidency Council meets to take the political process forward; that key legislation on sharing oil revenues, the constitutional review and provincial elections be passed; that the Government reach out to disaffected groups, as well as decide on next steps on detainees; and that local elections go ahead in early 2008, making provincial councils more representative. Our message to the Government of Iraq, and to the leaders of all Iraq's communities and parties, is that they must make the long-term decisions that are needed to achieve reconciliation. "The support of Iraq's neighbours, including a commitment to prevent financing and support for militias and insurgent groups, is also critical to ensuring security and political reconciliation. I urge all nations to implement the international compact to renew Iraq's economy, to participate in the neighbours conferences to boost co-operation and surmount divisions in the region, and to support the enhanced mission of the United Nations in Iraq. I renew our call, which I believe will be supported across the House, that Iran and Syria play a more constructive role by halting their support for terrorists and armed groups operating in Iraq, by continuing to improve border security and by arresting and detaining foreign fighters trying to reach Iraq. "We must all act against the presence of al-Qaeda in Iraq. When the people and security forces stand up to al-Qaeda, as happened in Anbar province, which it had declared to be its base, it can be driven out. "As I turn to the security situation, I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the steadfastness of our coalition partners who are working with us—troops from Denmark, the Czech Republic and Lithuania—and to the continuing role of Australia and Romania. The achievement of a democratic Iraq matters to every civilised nation. I pay tribute to all 26 nations, led by General Petraeus and the United States, that have troops on the ground in Iraq. "As the Petraeus-Crocker report set out, the security gains of the multinational forces this year have been significant. As important as improving current security is building the capacity of the Iraqi forces to achieve our aim: that Iraqis step up and progressively take over security."In 2004, it was agreed with the Iraqi Government that, in each of the 18 provinces, security responsibility would progressively be transferred to the Iraqi authorities, as and when the conditions were right. Now we are in a position to announce further progress."Over the past four years, the UK has helped to train over 13,000 Iraqi army troops, including 10,000 now serving with the 10th Division, which has been conducting operations in Basra and across the south of the country without the requirement for coalition ground support. As we tackle corruption, 15,000 police officers are also now trained and equipped in southern Iraq. The Iraqi army 14th Division, with around 11,000 men, is in the process of joining them and has already taken on responsibility for Basra city, bringing security forces in the south to almost 30,000 now and over 35,000 Iraqi security forces by June next year."Since we handed over our base in Basra city in early September, the present security situation has been calmer. Indeed, in the past month there have been five indirect fire attacks on Basra air station compared with 87 in July. While the four southern provinces have around 20 per cent of the population, they still account for less than 5 per cent of the overall violence in Iraq."During our engagement in Iraq, we have always made it clear that all our decisions must be made on the basis of the assessments of our military commanders and actual conditions on the ground. As a result of the progress made in southern Iraq, United States, UK and Iraqi commanders judged over the past 15 months that three out of the four provinces in the UK's area of control in southern Iraq were suitable for transition back to the Iraqis, and these have subsequently been transferred to Iraqi control."As part of the process of putting the Iraqi forces in the lead in Basra, we have just gone through a demanding operation, which involved consolidating our forces at Basra airport. This was successfully completed, as planned, last month. "The next important stage in delivering our strategy to hand over security to the Iraqis is to move from a combat role in the rest of Basra province to overwatch, which will have two distinct stages. In the first, the British forces that remain in Iraq will have the following tasks: training and mentoring the Iraqi army and police force; securing supply routes and policing the Iran-Iraq border; and maintaining the ability to come to the assistance of the Iraqi security forces when called on. Then, in the spring of next year—and guided as always by the advice of our military commanders—we plan to move to a second stage of overwatch, where the coalition would maintain a more limited reintervention capacity and where the main focus will be on training and mentoring."I want now to explain how, after detailed discussions with our military commanders, a meeting of the National Security Committee, discussions with the Iraqi Government and our allies, and subject to conditions on the ground, we plan, from next spring, to reduce force numbers in southern Iraq to a figure of 2,500. The first stage begins now. With the Iraqis already assuming greater security responsibility, we expect to establish provincial Iraqi control in Basra province in the next two months, as announced by the Prime Minister of Iraq; move to the first stage of overwatch; reduce numbers in southern Iraq from the 5,500 at the start of September to 4,500 immediately after provincial Iraqi control and then to 4,000; and then in the second stage of overwatch, from the spring—and guided as always by the advice of our military commanders—reduce to around 2,500 troops, with a further decision about the next phase made then. In both stages of overwatch, around 500 logistics and support personnel will be based outside Iraq elsewhere in the region."At all times we shall aim to achieve our long-term aim of handing over security to the Iraqi armed forces and police, honouring our obligations to the Iraqi people and to their security, and ensuring the safety of our forces."I would also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the work of our civilian and locally employed staff in Iraq, many of whom have worked in extremely difficult circumstances exposing themselves and their families to danger. I am pleased therefore to announce today a new policy that more fully recognises the contribution made by our local Iraqi staff who work for our Armed Forces and civilian missions in what we know are uniquely difficult circumstances."Existing staff who have been employed by us for more than 12 months and have completed their work will be able to apply for a package of financial payments to aid resettlement in Iraq or elsewhere in the region, or—in agreed circumstances—for admission to the UK. Professional staff, including interpreters and translators, with a similar length of service who have left our employ since the beginning of 2005 will also be able to apply for assistance. We will make a further Written Statement on the detail of this scheme this week."The purpose of economic reconstruction is to ensure that ordinary Iraqis have an economic stake in the future and so, as a result of the work that I launched with Prime Minister Maliki in July, the Provincial Council has created the Basra Investment Promotion Agency to stimulate private sector development and is forming a Basra development fund—financed by $30 million from the Iraqi Finance Ministry—to help small businesses to access finance."As announced this morning by the Government of Iraq, we have agreed on the need for a new Basra development commission, which will bring national, regional and international business knowledge together to provide advice on how to increase investment and economic growth. The commission will host a business leadership conference to strengthen the engagement of the UK private sector in Iraq and it will help the provincial authorities to co-ordinate projects to strengthen Basra's position as an economic hub, including the development of Basra international airport and the renovation of the port."I can tell the House that in addition to our support for humanitarian assistance being announced by the Department for International Development today, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minster Barham Saleh has announced more than $300 million for investment in Basra. This will be increased again in 2008, ensuring that economic reconstruction can make real progress."The safety and security of our Armed Forces remain our highest priority. The Mastiff patrol vehicle offers the best known protection against mines and roadside bombs and I can announce today that, in addition to the 100 bought and deployed last year in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence is placing an order for another 140 Mastiff patrol vehicles."In recognition of the work of all our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan—and to help our troops to stay in touch with home—we will provide additional funding from the reserve to double the number of internet terminals and provide free wireless internet for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan so that they can e-mail their families from their living quarters."I am convinced after my visit to the region that progress cannot be fully achieved without progress on Israeli-Palestinian issues. A few days ago, this Government published our proposals for an economic road map to underpin the peace process, a programme for economic and social support for the rebuilding of the Palestinian economy and the reduction of the high levels of poverty among the Palestinian people."My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary and I believe—as does the whole international community, including the United States, the European Union and the Arab League—that current dialogue between President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert offers the best chance of final status negotiations since 2000. The next step is a meeting with the parties and key international players in November at which we would like to see an agreement that puts the Israelis and Palestinians on a path to real negotiations in 2008 leading to a final settlement of two states living side by side in peace and security. "There will also be a donors' conference in December, through which the international community will work with Prime Minister Fayyad to strengthen the economy and institutions of a future Palestinian state. I welcome Tony Blair's work as quartet envoy on this."The UK will continue to support the political process and to provide support for humanitarian assistance and economic development. I assure the House of my personal commitment to doing all that we can to ensure progress."Working for a successful conclusion in the Middle East peace process, taking on al-Qaeda terrorism and ensuring a more secure Iraq are all key to the future stability of the region. We have made commitments to the Iraqi people through the United Nations, and we will honour these obligations. We will continue to be actively engaged in Iraq's political and economic development. We will continue to assist the Iraqi Government and their security forces to help to build their capabilities—military, civilian and economic—so that they can take full responsibility for the security of their own country. "It is also important to remember what has brought us to this stage. It is the determination, professionalism and sacrifice of our Armed Forces. They have protected the Iraqi people, while training their security forces to bring peace to their cities, towns and districts. The scale of their achievement should not be underestimated, and we will never shirk from, but will continue to discharge, our duties to them and to the international community. I commend the Statement to the House".
	My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for repeating this important Statement. But I am sure—or at least I hope—that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who knows a thing or two about such matters, will join me in asking why there is nothing in the Statement about the issue that dominated the press conference given by the Prime Minister this morning. Why has government been brought to a standstill for weeks? Why was official business rescheduled? Why was a major statement by the noble Lord, Lord Darzi, which should have come to the House this week, launched instead to the media last week? Why were our troops in Iraq exploited as a backdrop to spin?
	Why was general election fever stoked up by No. 10 and then dropped in the most humiliating circumstances? Why did the Prime Minister consider an election at all? Can the noble Baroness explain? Or was she, too, kept outside No. 10 while the young Turks and US polling gurus swaggered in and out?
	We are pleased that the Prime Minister has now turned his attention from swings in marginals to the immense strategic challenge facing our country in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. This is a full Statement; but it still leaves much unsaid. It is essential that this House should have a chance to debate these matters and the Middle East well before Christmas.
	I follow the noble Baroness and the Prime Minister in paying tribute to the 25 servicemen who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since we last met; 25 young lives. It is a deeply disturbing number. The steady toll in death and serious injury to young men and women who serve our country and to their families is never something that should become a routine litany of condolence. Each and every one of these is or was a unique person; a son, a father, or a husband. Their sacrifice and their loss will never be forgotten by their loved ones; it must never be forgotten by any one of us.
	We owe our servicemen and their families three things. First, we owe them our support; they need to know the profound and lasting sense of debt that we have for what they do, and I am sure that I speak for the whole House in that. Secondly, we owe our troops the logistic support and equipment that they need to succeed in the dangerous jobs that we ask of them and to succeed in those jobs with a minimum of risk. Is the noble Baroness aware that many in the services say that the equipment has not always been there and, in some cases, still is not?
	It is good to hear that the MoD is ordering 140 more Mastiff vehicles, but was not the time to have them not as our troops are coming out but when they were going in? We welcome the support for Iraqis who have helped British forces, though it is a depressing comment on the situation that their only safe recourse may be to flee here. We also welcome the provision of internet and e-mail facilities for our troops—perhaps they may even get the facility to vote—but surely that, too, should have been done before. Can the noble Baroness promise that where the system of support and compensation has failed servicemen injured in Iraq, that scandal will urgently be addressed?
	Finally, we owe our forces truth, honesty and clarity about the aims of their mission, about its strategic purposes and about what it has achieved. The place where the search for truth and clarity should begin is here in Parliament. We therefore welcomed the Prime Minister's pledge to abandon the spin and announcements and re-announcements outside Parliament that had discredited his predecessor. Will the noble Baroness, as our Leader, express to the Prime Minister the regret of this House that, instead of coming first here to Parliament to set out facts, he went to Iraq to spin and manipulate numbers in the old new Labour way?
	To say,
	"indeed by Christmas, 1,000 of our troops can be brought back to the UK";
	to give that message to troops still out there, 1,000 of whom will not be coming home by Christmas; to do so, for personal political advantage, to upstage a rival party conference; and to spin that headline to young men and women who deserved and knew the truth—was that not something that will tarnish the Prime Minister's reputation for a long time? Can the noble Baroness tell the House: did the Secretary of State for Defence approve that statement in advance? If she does not know, a nod from the noble Lord, Lord Drayson, will confirm it.
	What are the facts as to the mission? Most of us welcome the idea of troops coming home. But is not what is really wanted that our troops come home with the mission accomplished? The Prime Minister is right to refer to improvements in the Iraqi security situation, but he is right to refer also to the great need for further political progress and reconciliation. Is there not a very long way to go before that country even nears political stability?
	What is our current mission in Basra and in southern Iraq? Can the noble Baroness explain a little more exactly what is meant by "overwatch"? What criteria would underlie a redeployment by our forces outside the air base and within Iraq? Would the UK Government contemplate a "surge" if there were a further upsurge in violence in the south? Who would make that decision? Could the Iraqi Government invoke such a deployment? Can the noble Baroness now say who controls Basra? Is any part of Basra or the south in the hands of those militias responsible for attacking and killing our troops? Is it true that the Mahdi Army are conducting a regime of terror in parts of the city, comparable to that of the Taliban, including brutal intimidation of unveiled women?
	The Prime Minister says Iran and Syria must halt support for violence in Iraq. What is our assessment of the role of Iran in the threat to our troops? What response have we had to representations from the Governments of Syria and Iran? Have the US Government made representations to us about a joint response to the threat from Iran? If the international security situation deteriorates, is the noble Baroness satisfied that the border between Iraq and Iran can be policed effectively without the permanent involvement of British troops?
	The security of our forces is paramount. Can the noble Baroness assure the House that a political temptation to be popular and to accelerate withdrawal will never be allowed to damage the whole strategic purpose of our deployment or to jeopardize what has been achieved by past sacrifices? Withdrawal is an ideal, but it is not an end in itself. Does the noble Baroness accept that the whole future of the Government would be called into question if our forces in Basra were reduced to a level where they could not conduct forceful and effective self-defence? Is she satisfied that these further reductions to just 2,500 troops—by when, the Statement is not clear—do not risk that?
	Finally, can she assure us that when the Prime Minister said that 1,000 troops would be coming home, he meant home? Is there any proposal to redeploy units withdrawn from Iraq into even more bitter fighting in Afghanistan? Our Armed Forces are extraordinary in their courage and resolve; they must have that support, equipment and clarity of which I spoke. Clarity can come only when some of the fog that has settled over our strategic purposes in Iraq and Afghanistan is lifted. I fear that this Statement fails this vital test.

Lord McNally: My Lords, I will resist following the Leader of the Opposition in commenting on the events of recent days and weeks, partly because most noble Lords on all sides of the House know what happened and why, and do not need any teasing from me to fully appreciate what was lost by the Prime Minister and the nature of this self-inflicted wound. However, three things are clear from recent events. Certainly, as the Leader of the House and the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said, there is a tremendous pride in Britain about the courage and professionalism of our troops, and I associate myself with the tribute to the fallen and injured.
	The British people instinctively find repugnant any suggestion that politicians appear to be playing politics with the safety and security of British forces. The Prime Minister has made his explanation and, as I said, people can make their own judgments about what happened. I accept, as the Prime Minister made clear in another place, that he and other senior Ministers must go and see our troops. That is clearly understood by opposition politicians as well, but that is different from what may or may not have happened last week.
	The British people also recognise that a real and practical debt of honour is owed to those who work for British forces and the Government, and we welcome the explanation in the Statement about what will happen. I only hope that the process will not be over-bureaucratic and slow in dealing with these issues, because it is literally a matter of life and death for the people involved.
	We also welcome the priority in the Statement for attention to Israel/Palestine. We on these Benches have always pointed out that the settlement of the Israel/Palestine issue is a central part of the puzzle for getting lasting peace in the region. We also welcome the aspirations,
	"to bring together the political groupings ... to ensure ... the security of the Iraqi people ... to work for the economy in Iraq".
	We parted company with the Government for a long time because we did not believe that British military intervention was needed to foster those ends, and we do not believe that a continuing British military presence helps either. The real danger of this Statement is that it continues to try to ride two horses at once. It wants to satisfy what everybody knows is the popular desire to get troops home—hence the use of numbers. But it also ties us to a long-term military commitment inside Iraq. As was pointed out in this morning's Times by Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the Government have in the past given the public false hopes for what could be achieved. I fear that this Statement is another illustration of making overblown commitments and false hopes.
	What does "overwatch" mean? It means,
	"training and mentoring the Iraqi Army and police force; securing supply routes and policing the Iran-Iraq border; and the ability to come to the assistance of the Iraqi security forces when called upon".
	Is that all to be done by 2,500 troops, locked away in Basra airport? When noble Lords with a military background comment on this, I will be interested to hear whether that will be a force or simply a target. It worries me that the Government are trying to win the numbers game and, at the same time, leave an increasingly small number of troops locked away in one area with no time limit to that commitment.
	What does "facility for reintervention" mean and in what circumstances would it be used? The trouble is that we are hearing all the right mood music to suggest that the Government have learnt the lessons of one of the most disastrous escapades in British foreign policy in the past 50 years—a disaster in which the British troops have had to try to get the chestnuts out of the fire—but there is no evidence in the long-term commitment that the lessons have been learnt. We are still tied to a long-term strategy in which our troops are asked to do far more than any rational examination of the situation shows they can do. What about training? What targets will there be for the trainers who are left in Iraq?
	We welcome the new equipment and some of the new realities expressed in the Statement, but in his first 100 days the Prime Minister missed an opportunity. He inherited Blair's war and he could have got us out of it. Now, we are involved in Brown's war.

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I begin by saying that I am grateful for the sentiments expressed by noble Lords about the fallen and injured. I know that I speak for the whole House in sending our condolences to the families of those who have fallen and also to the injured and their families, as I said in the Statement.
	Noble Lords have focused on a number of key points, and I begin with where we are today in the context of the previous days. I thought that I was a young Turk and I know a little about polling gurus, as noble Lords will appreciate. However, I have to say to noble Lords that, whatever the speculation about elections and whatever election fever, the business of government goes on, and many of the way in which people have ascribed the work that, for example, my noble friend Lord Darzi has been continuing with his review are irrelevant to whether or not there is an election. My noble friend has been busy working on his review and, indeed, he made a statement in October as he had planned to do. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister said when he gave the Statement to another place, it was very clear that, had he not visited our troops before making the Statement, it would have been quite reasonable for Members of another place or this House to have criticised that fact.
	The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said that it would be useful to have a debate on these issues before Christmas. I am more than happy to ensure that that happens and I am sure that the usual channels can arrange that if noble Lords wish to see that take place.
	My right honourable friends the Secretary of State for Defence and the Prime Minister enjoy a close relationship on all these matters and they discuss these issues, as noble Lords would expect, in the way that one would expect them to continue over time. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that this would have been the case during the past few days, as it has been since my right honourable friend because Prime Minister.
	Noble Lords focused considerably on overwatch. I am more than happy to arrange for a more detailed briefing to be placed in the Library to explain this to your Lordships as a precursor to a further debate that we might have. As I tried to indicate in the Statement, overwatch has essentially two stages. The first is keeping troops on the ground but enabling the Iraqis to take over the work of our troops, working closely to ensure that the training is in place, making sure that they have the equipment and the necessary knowledge, but being available to support them, if that is needed. Then, assuming that the military commanders feel that it is appropriate and of course when the Iraqis feel confident and comfortable that that be the case, to withdraw.
	The capacity for reintervention must always be factored in. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, is right to raise that but it must always be factored in in situations where one is seeking to ensure that violence does not flare up again. But in all the work on overwatch, it would be essential to ensure that the commanders on the ground are comfortable that we have reached that point.
	Noble Lords also focused on the issues of Israel and Palestine. I agreed with the noble Lord, Lord McNally, on the importance within the region, and of course it is essential that as much effort is put in to ensuring that we get stability between Israel and Palestine and that we reach a peaceful and secure solution as quickly as possible.
	As my noble friend Lord West said in response to the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, earlier today, it is important to recognise our moral obligation to those who work with us. At this stage, I have given as much detail as I can and, of course, further details will be forthcoming later in the week. I know that noble Lords follow with great care what is being suggested and I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, about ensuring that this is not over-bureaucratic, but is able to tackle the concerns as quickly as possible.
	It is important to give an indication of troop numbers. The Statement said that the aim is a reduction to 2,500, which will start from the spring of 2008. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, is right, in a sense, to say that numbers are only part of it and that the numbers will be reached when the situation on the ground is safe for the troops and for the people of Iraq. That must be our ultimate aim.
	The noble Lord said that bringing the troops home is a popular desire. It is the desire of all governments to bring troops home safely, having completed the necessary work. I am sure the whole House will agree that whatever the history and background, and whatever view noble Lords might take, it is very important that our troops stay to complete this important task, ensuring that Iraq is safe and stable for the future.

Lord Brittan of Spennithorne: My Lords, in the press reports foreshadowing this Statement it was suggested that, with regard to the number of people who have assisted our forces, whether as interpreters or otherwise, and who would be admitted to this country, there would be a ceiling of 500. Does the Minister agree it is only when carefully assessing each individual case that it is possible to know how many of those who have bravely assisted our forces are at such risk to their lives that they should be admitted to this country? If that is the case, does she agree that it would be quite wrong to fix, in advance, an arbitrary numerical ceiling of 500 and will she assure the House that that will not be done?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I am aware of those press reports. I have been given no information of any arbitrary ceiling. I agree with the noble Lord that it is very important to consider each individual case carefully, within the context of the alternatives indicated in the Statement, and what might be available to those individuals. I know that noble Lords will watch with great care the detail of the proposals as they are laid before your Lordships' House.

Lord Campbell-Savours: My Lords, can we be assured that the agreement conditions, which my noble friend says will be the subject of an Answer later this week, will not act as an incentive for people who are vital to Iraq to calculate that there is potentially an open door into the United Kingdom for them, thereby distorting their willingness to stay and carry out their vital functions?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, my noble friend raises an interesting point. I have no doubt that greater minds than mine are looking at this to ensure that we recognise the individual circumstances of those who have been involved with and worked alongside us, so that we are mindful of their desire to stay in their own country and, in the main, in their own region and that, where it seems to be appropriate, that offer can be made. When looking at the detail of what is proposed we should take the opportunity to consider the matter further through questions or debate.

Lord Fowler: My Lords, the noble Baroness may be aware that I first raised the issue of the Iraqis who work for the British on the Floor of the House in April and later in June this year. I obviously welcome the movement that the Government have shown but it has not been quick. The concern expressed by my noble friend Lord Brittan is whether it will be enough. The Government now say that they accept that they have a moral duty to help, but if there is to be a limit on the numbers to be helped, that moral duty will be avoided. That will be the case if yet another limit is placed on those resettled in the United Kingdom. The House needs reassurance on that point.
	Secondly, all the attention has so far necessarily and naturally been on Iraqi staff, but they have not been the only people working for the British in Iraq. An obvious example is those translators who have been working for British newspapers or television companies. Can we take it that those who have been working for the British in other ways will also have the same attention and the same ability to get help from the British Government?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, on the latter question, I will have to write to the noble Lord with the specific details. They will either be within the package or they will become clear. Obviously, I am most concerned with those who have been supporting us in our military involvement in Iraq. Those who have been working alongside the media, for example, fall into a slightly different category about which I do not have information at this stage; of course, I will let the noble Lord know.
	About 15,000 people have been working with us since March 2003. I gather that the number of Iraqis working with us is currently about 600. I give those figures to noble Lords to give a sense of the number of people who we will have to think about, very carefully, as individuals. The noble Lord is concerned about an arbitrary figure. I do not have any arbitrary figures; it has not been suggested to me that there would be any. Of course, bearing in mind what my noble friend has said, it will be a case of looking carefully at what people are saying their position is, thinking about financial packages for some and other packages for others, and being as clear as possible about the criteria used.

The Lord Bishop of Coventry: My Lords, is the assumption implicit in the decision to withdraw 1,000 troops that there is a certain stability in the country which was not there before? Can the Leader of the House relate that new level of stability to the large number of internally displaced persons and the huge number of refugees living in, for example, Syria? Is the stability such that they will be able to return to their homes and begin to live a normal life again?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, it must be the ambition of the Government, as the right reverend Prelate rightly says, that those who have been displaced should be able to return home. We would wish to see that happen in any region of the world. Certainly, in considering the security situation in any part of Iraq—not least in southern Iraq where our forces are working—it is a factor to be taken into account. It must be, as I have indicated, an ultimate ambition.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for the way in which she dealt with the preposterous allegation from the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that my right honourable friend the Prime Minister went to Iraq with the purpose of upstaging the Tory Party conference. That is a truly preposterous, almost outrageous, accusation. Of course, it was his duty to go and he was right to go when he did. Every right-minded person knows that.
	On the interesting point about Iran and Syria, the Statement talks about a more constructive world by their halting their support for terrorists and armed groups. A lot of us would draw a distinction between Iran and Syria in this respect. We know that under the previous Prime Minister, Sir Nigel Sheinwald went to try to have a more constructive relationship with the Syrians. Can my noble friend say any more about how a constructive relationship might now be taken forward, particularly with the Syrians, who are, of course, part of the Arab League?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I begin by paying tribute to my noble friend for the work that, as the whole House will agree, she did—and I know continues to do—so splendidly and constructively throughout the Middle East. I therefore hope that noble Lords will take heed of her comments to the Leader of the Opposition in that context; I shall say no more.
	Syria is an important state. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary met the Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem in New York on 28 September. The purpose of that meeting, in part, was to urge Syria to do more than it currently does to work for greater regional stability and, of course, to play a constructive role in Lebanon and the Middle East peace process. We have full diplomatic relations with Syria and wish to see it engaged fully in the region for exactly the reasons that my noble friend indicated and to make sure that in so doing it is mindful that stability in the region will have a beneficial effect on the nation of Syria.

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean: My Lords, given that so many of the details in the noble Baroness's answers to my noble friends Lord Brittan and Lord Fowler have not been worked out, would it not have been better to have made this Statement when they were worked out? Could she tell us when the Secretary of State for Defence was first informed of the Prime Minister's intention to visit Iraq?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, it is not that the details have not been worked out but that it is better for them to be put before your Lordships' House and another place in the form of a Written Statement in which noble Lords can see all the details. As part of the general Statement on Iraq, I was seeking to acknowledge that noble Lords and Members in another place wanted to hear the Government, swiftly back into Parliament, describe what they are proposing to do overall, and then to look at the detail more fully. That opportunity will be available to the noble Lord over the next few days. I am sure that he will come back to me and other Ministers if he is not satisfied.
	As to when my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence knew when the Prime Minister was going to Iraq, I do not have that detail. However, I asked officials whether the visit had been planned before it took place. It was. Therefore, if Ministry of Defence officials knew that the Prime Minister was going some time ago, then so, too, would the Secretary of State for Defence. If there is a specific date available, I shall certainly find it and write to the noble Lord.

Lord Morgan: My Lords, does my noble friend accept that those of us on these Benches join in rejecting the unsustainable political accusations made about the Prime Minister? However, on these Benches, we look forward to a line being drawn as rapidly as possible under the catastrophic and criminal policy that Gordon Brown has inherited. There was one great gap and weakness in the Statement that my noble friend read out, namely that it referred to the security, police and military forces in Iraq as though they are an integrated, unified group. They are a group of sectarian fragments; there are Shia police and Sunni police, which is one of the consequences of the catastrophic policy that we created. It unfortunately means that the prospects of our remaining in Iraq for a very long time are greatly enhanced.

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, as I indicated before, wherever noble Lords may feel that the genesis of the problem lay and whether or not noble Lords agreed with the action that was taken, the critical issue now is to make sure that Iraq reaches peaceful stability. A lot of the Statement—and noble Lords have not referred to this very much—was about the economic initiatives that are being taken to support Iraq as it begins to develop both its small business and trade across nations. I hope that noble Lords will be able to support those initiatives and see that our purpose is now to move to a stable country within a stable region.

Lord Craig of Radley: My Lords, I am sure that we all welcome the news that troop levels are going to be reduced and that the figure of 2,500 was mentioned as a target. When we get to that level, we will clearly be in the business of training, not war-fighting or even counter-insurgency. Does that mean that we can look to the Iraqi Government to fund the training effort that we are providing or will it continue to be a charge on the British purse?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, as the noble and gallant Lord will be aware, it is important that all those decisions are taken in conjunction with the Iraqi Government and on the basis of advice from commanders on the ground. As the noble and gallant Lord said, the training requirement will continue. How that is funded will be a matter for those discussions. I take the noble and gallant Lord's point: Iraq is a country with resources and it may well be that in time to come there will be a different basis for the training. However, as yet, I cannot confirm that that would be the case.

Lord Lea of Crondall: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that some of us are concerned at growing discussion in Washington about the territorial integrity of Iraq and about, in effect, three states: Sunni, Shia and Kurd? One of the problems with that line of thought is that it would not be a long-term, peaceful solution and would put great pressure on neighbouring states. Would my noble friend bear in mind that we need to think about that dimension when looking at the international environment?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, last night I was looking at a map of Iraq and where the different populations have existed for centuries in groupings. I come from the north of this country and so I understand the concept of being a northerner with a particular identity. There is nothing wrong with regional and geographical identities within nations. My noble friend is absolutely right that that peaceful coexistence between people who have a history and tradition that goes beyond being members of an Iraqi nation should be respected, but within the context of a nation.

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville: My Lords, when will the 140 extra Mastiff patrol vehicles be delivered on the ground? Secondly, is there any truth in the rumours in the press reports that the Iraqi command in Basra city is asking for British troops to resume patrolling within the city?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, the noble Lord will not be surprised when I say that we do not talk about operational issues on the ground. I am unable to answer his questions, but only for that reason.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, what exactly have we achieved, and what more can we achieve, if we have achieved anything at all, by keeping any further troops in Iraq? On the wider issue, can the Prime Minister give an assurance that the Government will not support, on the United States' coat-tails, any military action of any sort against Iran? Also, if there is to be a wider settlement in the Middle East, are the Government prepared to talk to Hamas, which occupies a good part of Palestinian territory and of course is an elected Government?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, on Iran, noble Lords will not be surprised when I say that we remain committed to preventing Iran from acquiring the means to develop nuclear weapons. Noble Lords will also not be surprised when I reiterate that we believe that Iran should comply fully with Security Council resolutions. That is the UK Government's stated position and we are working with our allies to try to ensure that that will be the case. Noble Lords would not expect me to go over all the history of Iraq, but I believe that it is important that we remain in the country in order to establish a safe and secure place with as much prosperity as possible for the people of Iraq. We should not be under any illusion about what life was really like for millions of people in Iraq long before 20 March 2003.

Lord Selkirk of Douglas: My Lords, in connection with Iraqis working with the British armed services being considered for asylum, if, as the Minister suggested, each case requires to be considered on its merits, will she accept that for justice to be done, justice needs to be carried out relatively speedily and that this needs to be dealt with as a matter of urgency and to be given some priority?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, the noble Lord is of course right. The balance must be between establishing clear criteria about precisely how we determine what support would be given to individuals—as I have indicated, a combination of financial resettlement and for some in certain circumstances the possibility of coming here—and being clear that we want this to happen as swiftly as possible. Again, I hope that when noble Lords see the detail of what is being put forward, notwithstanding the noble Lord's comments, they will feel more able to ask more detailed questions if that is appropriate, or indeed to debate the issues. Certainly, I would be more than happy to take those questions and to relay them to my colleagues in another place and Ministers here, and to make sure that noble Lords get the answers.

Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, the Statement talked about a development commission that will look at projects particularly to develop Basra airport. In every recent exercise that we have had with the United States, after the settlement there has been a complete, 100 per cent reorganisation and restructuring by the United States, with no other contractors from any other countries having any work in place; they have never had a part of it. Do we have any idea whether there will be some strictures to the effect that jobs in the post-war situation should be handed out evenly among the people who actually did all the work for Iraq?

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, the critical aspect is to ensure that the work is carried out by those most able to provide the support and reconstruction—if that is what is required—for the country. In the Statement, I described how one way in which we are doing that is to consider through a business leadership conference how best to develop links with UK industry and companies that can offer that support and provide the expertise needed. As I understand it, a $75 million plan to upgrade the airport to international standards is now under way with the provincial reconstruction team, with which we are deeply involved. The opportunities for British industry to compete successfully in contracts will come through the development work being put forward, although that must be on the basis that the companies are the right ones to do that work in all the ways that noble Lords would expect.

Foot and Mouth Disease and Bluetongue

Lord Rooker: My Lords, with permission, I should like to repeat a Statement made another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on this summer's outbreak of foot and mouth disease and on bluetongue.
	"On 3 August, foot and mouth disease was confirmed in Surrey. In line with the contingency plan, control measures, including a national ban on the movement of susceptible animals, were put in place immediately. The following day, the strain of virus was confirmed as 01-BFS-67. As that strain was not currently circulating in animals, that pointed to the Pirbright laboratory site as a potential source. I therefore commissioned the Health and Safety Executive to investigate the potential release from the site, and Professor Brian Spratt to lead a team of experts in a review of biosecurity arrangements. I am today placing in the Library a copy of those two reports, along with all of the Defra epidemiology reports. "It cannot be said with complete certainty exactly how the virus escaped from the Pirbright site. However, the reports concluded that the most likely route was accidental release from the drainage system. Whatever the route of escape, it should not have happened and we are determined that it does not happen again. I have accepted all of the recommendations in the reports from the HSE and Professor Spratt, and I have called for a review of the regulatory framework for handling animal pathogens led by Sir Bill Callaghan. "A rigorous improvement plan has been developed for the Pirbright site to be implemented before full operations with live virus can recommence and a review, led by BBSRC, is assessing the funding, governance and risk management at Institute for Animal Health. In addition, a safety alert has been issued to all animal pathogen category 3 and 4 laboratories, which will be followed by a round of inspections. Epidemiological surveillance indicated that it was highly unlikely that the virus had spread outside the Surrey area. Therefore, given that this surveillance went well beyond the European Union requirement; that the 30-day minimum time had elapsed; and that no further cases had been identified, the protection and surveillance the zones were lifted on 8 September. "Unfortunately, as we now know, there was undetected infection outside the surveillance zone and on 12 September foot and mouth disease was confirmed in a third case in Surrey and controls reimposed. There have now been eight infected premises in total. "On 25 September, given that the disease was confined to Surrey, we created two foot and mouth areas in Great Britain, a temporary risk area in south-east England and a lower risk area in the rest of the country where certain movements were permitted under licence. Markets reopened in the low-risk area last Thursday and on a visit to Skipton market I was able to see the difference this will make to the farming industry."The European Union has now confirmed that the export of meat can resume this Friday, 12 October, from Scotland, Wales, and the north and south-west of England. We will continue to work with the Commission to increase the areas from which exports can occur. "Working in partnership with the farming community has been an integral part of our approach to responding to this outbreak and I have listened to the views of industry about what further steps can be taken to alleviate very real economic and welfare pressures. "Because this outbreak has arisen from an unusual set of circumstances, I am announcing today a package of assistance for the English livestock sector, amounting to £12.5 million. The devolved Administrations are proposing to introduce their own schemes. "Subject to the European Union state-aid rules, I intend to make the following available to the farmers most affected. There will be £8.5 million of assistance to hill farmers, who have been particularly hard-hit. This one-off payment will be paid directly to them using the system we already have in place for the hill farm allowance and will be equivalent to just over 30 per cent of their 2007 payment. There will be an increase in the level of subsidy for the fallen stock scheme for farmers in the foot and mouth risk area from 10 per cent to 100 per cent. This will not apply to only existing members of the scheme, but will be available to all livestock keepers in the risk area. It will apply to stock which have had to be killed on farm for welfare or other reasons. I anticipate the cost being less than £1 million. There will be an additional contribution of up to £1 million to the Arthur Rank Centre for disbursement to Farming Help charities. These charities focus on providing advice and practical and emotional support for farming families."The final package is £2 million for the promotion and marketing of lamb, beef and pork domestically and in our export markets. The public sector is a major purchaser of meat and I am asking ministerial colleagues to increase opportunities for small and local producers to tender for their business. "We are also determined to do as much as possible to reduce the burden of red tape on farmers at this difficult time. Therefore, I have agreed for a delay from 5 January 2008 to the end of April 2008 in enforcing the requirement for livestock hauliers to have a certificate of competence for non-export journeys more than 65 kilometres; to seek a derogation from the Commission for grassland farmers to apply above the annual nitrogen application limit of 170 kilograms per hectare, which is one of the requirements for farmers in nitrate-vulnerable zones; and for a one month extension until 13 December for the closing date of the current consultation on the implementation of the nitrates directive."In addition, I would like to draw to the attention of the House to the fact that Natural England and the Rural Payments Agency are not enforcing certain cross-compliance requirements for agricultural environment schemes and the single farm payment where breaches of those requirements are caused directly by restrictions relating to foot and mouth or bluetongue. The Secretary of State for Transport announced last week that to assist movement of the backlog of animals the rules on drivers' hours for livestock hauliers would be relaxed for a limited period as markets reopened. "I also welcome the decision by the European Union on 3 October to raise the age at which the vertebral column of cattle is considered specified risk material from 24 to 30 months, which will facilitate the sale from butchers of beef from animals in this age bracket. This decision is subject to a three-month scrutiny period by the European Parliament. In the mean time, the Food Standards Agency will be undertaking a public consultation. "As if an outbreak of foot and mouth was not enough, on 22 September the first case of bluetongue was found in East Anglia. Bluetongue is very different from foot and mouth disease. It is spread by midges, rather than animal to animal, and we cannot stamp it out by slaughtering infected animals. However, the cases we have seen so far are in a limited geographical area and seem to result from midges being carried over the North Sea on the wind. As this happened in August when movement controls were in place because of foot and mouth disease, this may help to control the spread. By 28 September, the increase in cases indicated that the disease was circulating in our midge population and we confirmed the presence of bluetongue in Great Britain. The bluetongue temporary area was therefore replaced with a control zone and a protection zone."A clear understanding of the spread of the disease is now crucial to help the industry, with the support of government, to anticipate what may happen and what the appropriate response would be. This requires farmers in the zones to be vigilant and for the sake of their industry to report all new cases so that we can monitor whether this spread is occurring. We will keep this approach under review with the industry, not least because the effects of bluetongue movement controls mean that decisions on control should be taken by the industry and not just by Ministers."This has been an exceptionally difficult summer for the farming industry. I know from talking to many farmers and their representatives over the summer just how hard and distressing it has been, and still is, and I am grateful to the industry for its forbearance and support. I would also like to express my thanks to all those people from Defra, the Animal Health Agency and elsewhere whose professionalism, dedication and commitment has helped us to deal with these outbreaks, and I am sure that the House will wish to express its thanks too. I will of course keep the House informed of developments".
	My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

Lord Taylor of Holbeach: My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement made by the Secretary of State, Mr Benn, in another place earlier today, and I thank him for the courtesy of allowing me a preview of it. Before passing observations on what the Minister has said, I must declare an interest as a member of our family agriculture and horticultural business. Although we have some grazing, the sheep and cattle are not ours, but owned and cared for by a neighbour.
	First, I should like to acknowledge the work of the vets, officials, farmers and their staffs involved in the work of tracing the sources of the two outbreaks and, we hope, controlling the situation. I want to say how much I sympathise with the farmers affected by these outbreaks, and I am glad that they have been thoroughly and speedily investigated, and that reports have been produced expeditiously. I also welcome the specific measures announced by the Government to ease the situation, however inadequate they are to meet the losses suffered by the livestock industry.
	I am glad that the earlier attempts to spin the blame for the foot and mouth disease outbreak on to Merial have been discredited. It seems to me that the staff at Pirbright have tried over some years to draw attention to the situation that led to this outbreak and that the blame must be laid solely at the door of Defra. The Minister has said that the investigations all show that the drainage system was the most likely route for the escape of the virus. Can the Minister comment on whether the lessons of Pirbright will be carried through the Government's establishments? Experience tells me that if matters are arranged in a certain way on one government complex, they are likely to be duplicated in others. Can he assure me that all facilities which deal with material harmful to people, animals or the environment will be checked to ensure that any similar drainage systems are replaced as quickly as possible in order to separate storm water from effluent that may be contaminated? Is he able to report to the House which establishments pose such risks and what action has been taken?
	I welcome the report from Professor Spratt, published on 31 August. Professor Spratt has not minced his words. Point five of his overview describes the,
	"old, poorly maintained and defective effluent system".
	Point six refers to the,
	"poor state of the IAH laboratories, and the effluent pipes".
	Those comments are summed up in point 33:
	"There has been concern for several years that the effluent pipes were old and needed replacing but, after much discussion between IAH, Merial and Defra, money had not been made available".
	In earlier times, I was involved with horticultural establishments not unlike the Institute of Animal Health which lies at the centre of this crisis. The new build is impressive, the technology is first-class, but maintenance is frequently considered a Cinderella. The Treasury induces a penny-pinching approach to the proper maintenance of public assets. What private company would have ignored the connection between biohazardous waste and the rainwater system? When this was made known, how is it that the Government could consider it more important to argue over who would pay to put it right than recognising the danger and doing something about it?
	The Minister referred also to the bluetongue outbreak. This second body-blow to the farming industry is capable of being far more damaging than the largely contained FMD outbreak. I hope that we will see Defra contain bluetongue as effectively and as efficiently, and ease the restrictions as quickly, as it did with foot and mouth. Newark livestock market is not far off 100 miles from the centre of the outbreak of this second crippling disease. It finds itself, however, only 100 metres within the zone and is, as such, effectively closed. I cannot see that this is in the public interest. I hope the Minister will attend to this issue without delay.
	Are there any proposals to compensate farmers with animals afflicted with bluetongue, which could, if the Belgian experience is anything to go by, be the cause of many cattle and sheep deaths in the future, with huge economic consequences?
	The sad story of this summer's FMD outbreak is one of a series of disasters for Defra and one of huge consequences. It is no exaggeration to say that people's lives have been ruined by Defra's negligence. If this sounds angry, I am but reflecting the greater anger that rural communities feel at this whole episode. Where is the shame that the Government should be expressing at their part in this unnecessary tragedy for British livestock farmers? Not even an apology appears in the Statement.

Lord Redesdale: My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I, too, declare an interest: I own two tenant farms which again have been affected rather badly by the outbreak of FMD, as they were on the previous occasion.
	One of the problems faced by upland and lowland farmers is that the outbreak happened at exactly the wrong time of year. The non-movement of animals has been particularly devastating as keeping sheep on the fells or in the off-land means eating into winter feed, which is an added expense. After the wet summer, when many farmers failed to get in adequate supplies of winter feed, this is a double blow.
	Much has been mentioned about responsibility for this outbreak. I know that the Minister and many of those working at Defra have worked extremely hard and cannot be held personally to blame for this. However, the biosecurity at Pirbright is an issue that needs to be addressed. Can the Minister say whether it is believed that the cuts that Pirbright has suffered in its funding over the past few years directly led to the situation with biosecurity? There has been a lapse in biosecurity and if it has something to do with the cut in funding it would seem particularly unfair.
	The Minister said in the Statement that £8.5 million will be available to hill farmers—a move that is much welcomed by hill farmers—but how did he arrive at that figure? It is calculated at 30 per cent of the overall payment, but is it £8.5 million because that is what was in the budget, or is it because £8.5 million has been worked out as the cost that will be faced by the hill farmers? It seems quite unfair that lowland farmers are not also beneficiaries of this.
	The Statement says that the Minister is taking constructive steps and that the Government buy meat products. Will the Minister make representations to the MoD because it seems particularly unfortunate that meat produced next to Otterburn training area—a very large upland area for sheep farming—is not immediately sold on to the Army, which buys on the international market and not only on the national market?
	I turn now to the issue of information and the excellent work conducted by the NFU through its bulletins. This has been a lifeline to many farmers who want information, especially as there is a feeling in the farming community somewhat against Defra at the moment. Bluetongue has been mentioned. I know this outbreak has spread throughout northern Europe and has nothing to do with Defra, whose quick actions are paramount in this area. Recently there has been talk about the bluetongue virus mutating, which would mean that a cold winter would probably not finish off the virus. How much money and resources are being devoted to finding a vaccine for that?
	I hope the Minister will look at the issue of the price of cattle and sheep that went to market straight after the FMD outbreak. There was an immediate drop in price. I hope he will look at whether some of the companies involved were profiteering, and will consider actions that could be taken to guard against that if—although I hope it never happens—the next outbreak occurs, because that had a devastating impact on those people outside the area who immediately lost value in their stock.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I thank both noble Lords who during the course of their remarks have paid tribute to the vets and the staff on the ground. There are literally hundreds of people involved in this, including the State Veterinary Service—or the Animal Health agency, as it is now—and the vets from the NFU, the RSPCA, the police and trading standards. There has been a massive effort, which is still going on. We freely acknowledge that the situation could not have been managed by Defra alone. I can virtually commit that each and every one of the recommendations in the executive summary of Professor Anderson's report about the lessons from the previous foot and mouth outbreak was followed and has been implemented during this unfortunate outbreak, which, as the Statement says, has happened in somewhat special circumstances.
	In early August the deputy chief vet said to me, "We will probably never ever get another foot and mouth outbreak like this". It is quite controlled in one area and there is obviously a single source; all the eight outbreaks have been the same strain so it is quite clear that the disease came out of Pirbright somehow. We are not completely certain how, but in all the reports the evidence is that the disease probably came out through that drain, probably because of a loose manhole cover. There had been a lot of flooding on the site. There was also an enormous amount of vehicle movement because there is a £121 million capital programme on the site, so there were lots of lorries on and off the premises. The virus should not have been in the loose-fitting drain in the first place—it should have been killed off—but it was, and it aerosoled out into the air, maybe on to the lorries. It looks as though that was the route out, although one cannot be absolutely certain about it.
	I shall try to deal with as many points as possible. What I am about to say is not in any way a defence, but Pirbright is not a government-run laboratory. The CSL at York, the Veterinary Laboratories Agency at Weybridge and the Cefas laboratories at Lowestoft and Weymouth are government-run, but Pirbright is not. The Institute for Animal Health is not government-run; it has its own financial structure and is accountable to the Science Council, while Merial is a private sector company. The Government are a massive customer of the IAH, and there is an organised split between the diseases dealt with by the IAH and by the VLA at Weybridge. It pays not to have all your eggs in one basket, and it was decided many years ago that there would be a split. As well as being a big customer, we are also the regulator. That is implied in the Statement. No one has said to me that there has been a problem of conflict of interest, but it does not look right that the biggest customer is the regulator as well. That is the issue Sir Bill Callaghan, the former chair of the Health and Safety Commission, is looking at.
	The facilities needed dealing with, hence the massive programme. I have not visited Pirbright; in fact, I was due to visit it as part of taking on animal health after the reshuffle. I was warned that I must go on a certain day, because I needed five days' clearance after I had been there before I could go off on my week's walking holiday, although in the event I could not go. So there were procedures in place. Anyone who reads Professor Spratt's report will know, however, that it is shot through with lack of care and attention to biosecurity, and we have accepted all its recommendations.
	Facilities are being checked around the country. I cannot give Members reports from the laboratories concerned because the checks are being undertaken now. Several laboratories work with pathogen categories 3 and 4, both animal and human, and all of them are being checked. Although the drains were identified as an outlet at Pirbright, we need to check all possible avenues of infection.
	We could have done without bluetongue, but we were expecting it—Defra has received weather forecasts virtually every day for some 18 months. I saw the map of a plume of midges and was told that it could have been responsible. We now know that two plumes that came across the Channel on 22 July, 27 July or 4 August may have brought the virus. We updated and published a bluetongue action plan in late July/early August, when the House went into Recess. The disease is totally different from foot and mouth; it cannot be controlled by slaughter, which is why we do not slaughter the animals concerned. It is true that we slaughtered the first few animals that we identified as being infected, but once it was confirmed that the disease was circulating, it was clear that slaughter was not an option. I recognise that slaughter raises issues of compensation: where we slaughter, we compensate; where we do not slaughter, we do not compensate. Those rules are part of plan. I cannot expand on the matter today.
	The boundaries between the current zones containing markets and abattoirs—one can see them on maps; they are being regularly updated—are a problem. After two days of the Labour Party conference I had had enough and came back early last week—it was an interesting two days; I must not complain. Due to the bluetongue outbreak, I came back to meet farmers from Norfolk and Suffolk at the NFU's offices in Newmarket and visit farms. It was explained to me that East Anglia is a large cattle and sheep area, but does not have massive abattoir capacity. Some big farms there—I have in mind four companies, but I shall not name them—have contracts that stipulate traceability, so they want to use the same abattoir. I understand that situation; it is an important part of the process. We are looking into the possibility of licensing areas on the boundary or changing the boundary. We have to very careful with the zones because they are set by the EU, but I assure the House that we are looking into the matter.
	It has been a bad time of year for the outbreak to occur, particularly in the uplands. More than a million sheep in upland Scotland and Wales would have gone to slaughter and to export, but there is now little market for them in this country. I mean no criticism when I say that the fact that the outbreak occurred while the House was in Recess was in some ways a blessing, because Ministers were not forced to pontificate and speculate daily. Part of the action plan, based on lessons from the previous foot and mouth outbreak, is to make sure that resources are available and that scientists and vets are in charge, taking decisions that are based on the science and not on political pressures. It was crucial that that part of the plan operated. The House being in Recess facilitated it.
	How was the figure of £8.5 million arrived at? Discussions took place. The payment is not forward of the hill farm allowance; it just so happens that it is about 30 per cent of what English hill farmers had. The payment has already been made. We wanted to get money to the most seriously affected farmers. All farmers have been badly affected by the outbreak—let us make no bones about it—but those in the hills have suffered particularly because, without question, they cannot diversify as easily as elsewhere. Owing to the way in which we pay the hill farm allowance, we have a list of addresses and know exactly what was paid earlier this year. We hope to make the payments before the end of this month. We will ask other government departments to encourage home purchase in this difficult period. I appreciate that they are wary of their accountants, but we sometimes have to ask them to think about human beings as well.
	I pay tribute to the work of the NFU and all those who have given out information. The website and the maps are constantly updated in Defra and we always encourage people to look at that. All the announcements are there—but the work on the ground of the RSPCA and the NFU, as well as the local authorities, has been absolutely crucial.
	Work is going on on a vaccine for bluetongue, as the House knows, but it is not available at present. It may take more than a cold snap to affect the situation. I am told that it may take four months of continuous hard winter—and then it may carry over in cattle, rather than the midges. At the present time, when I checked at midday today, the figure was 30 cases, which are still confined to the same area. The disease is mainly occurring in the Ipswich area, although there is the outbreak near Lowestoft as well. However, as the Statement says, now that the House is back we shall do our best to keep the House informed, as we have tried to keep colleagues informed throughout the whole of the outbreak, both in this House and the elected Members in the other place.

The Countess of Mar: My Lords, the Minister has just mentioned making decisions based on science. Could he explain why Pirbright itself was not made the first infected premises? We knew that no animals were leaving Pirbright and that therefore it would depend on humans and vehicle movements. If Pirbright had been treated as the first IP, the protection and surveillance zone boundaries would have been different and we would not have had the second outbreak of foot and mouth disease.
	I understand that a lot of construction work has been going on at the Pirbright premises, as is mentioned in the report. Lorries, JCBs and all sorts of vehicles were going on and off the premises without being sprayed as they went out. There seems to have been a very poor quality of record-keeping as to where all those vehicles went. Rumour has it that some lorries were taking topsoil from Pirbright and delivering it to people for their gardens. Can the Minister say anything about that?
	As for bluetongue, there have been reports of outbreaks on the Continent, where animal welfare has been put in jeopardy because people cannot afford to pay to have their animals put down. That particularly applies to sheep, which I gather suffer the most. Will the Minister consider either assisting farmers with the cost of euthanizing their animals—vets fees are pretty expensive, if you call a vet out to put an animal down—or having a team of people who are prepared to come out and euthanize the animals, so that the animals do not suffer and farmers do not have to watch their animals dying because they cannot afford to have them put down?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I cannot answer precisely the initial question asked by the noble Countess with regard to Pirbright and the control zone, but I assure her that when I was telephoned on Friday—and I was not in the country at the time—I was informed that the location of that first outbreak was incredibly close to Pirbright. In other words, the connection had been made virtually as the analysis was being done. Even then, that may well have been locking the stable door. I have not previously referred to this, but when the foot and mouth disease came back again in a third, fourth and fifth outbreak, it is clear from all the evidence that we have that the fifth was not in fact the fifth but at least the third—and it may have been earlier than that. The disease was not reported and the lesions were up to four weeks old in some cases. The chronology is still being worked on by epidemiologists.
	On bluetongue, I do not discount the distress of farmers but at the moment there are only 30 cases and one hopes that it will not spread. The disease does affect sheep very badly, but the bluetongue plan—which we updated and published in late July or early August—was agreed with the industry. There was no surprise about this; we had been getting ready for bluetongue for a while. We know what happened in Belgium, where it was rampant before it was discovered. We have the unique situation, because of the movement ban of foot and mouth, of being able to know more about how it may spread. I assure the noble Countess that dozens of scientists and vets are working on this at present. They are in the unique position of being able to find out more about how bluetongue spreads in a way in which they were unable to do in Germany and Belgium.

Baroness Shephard of Northwold: My Lords, the Minister mentioned his visit to Newmarket to talk to farmers from Norfolk and Suffolk who are of course affected by the restrictions imposed as a result of bluetongue. He will therefore be in no doubt at all about the unworkability of the present restrictions. Everybody understands what the Government have to do, but the fact is that there is no slaughtering capacity for the animals within East Anglia. Will the Minister this afternoon sketch out how he thinks plans for dealing with bluetongue might be developed, in altering the zones or whatever it might be? He has hinted that changes are being looked at. Is he in any position at all to enlarge on that?

Lord Rooker: No, my Lords, because then I would be making exactly the same mistake as happened in the last foot and mouth outbreak. As the Minister, I am not qualified to do that. We are aware in Defra at all levels, officials and Ministers, of the difficulties here and staff are looking at this issue as I speak. We are having daily reports on animal welfare and all the issues relating to this. I counted the list one day and there are 42 separate bodies reporting in, both from Defra and external. The welfare one is important, and the mapping one is absolutely crucial.
	Our plan is to collapse the zones as quickly as we possibly can, for both foot and mouth and bluetongue. There is no doubt about that; it is in everybody's interests. I have just seen a small map that was brought to my office, which I have not brought into the Chamber with me because I could not really have used it as we cannot use overhead projectors here, which shows where the small abattoirs are in East Anglia. It is not that there are none, but the capacity is not there for the animals. In the main, large numbers of animals in East Anglia go to Devon, Wales and Lincolnshire for slaughter, because they are going to dedicated slaughterhouses for the contracts that those farmers have. That is important. Therefore, there was never a reason commercially to build up the abattoirs; the smaller ones are there but, clearly, we have to do something—either to licence abattoirs or look at the zones. Both those issues are under active consideration. That I can say.

Lord Livsey of Talgarth: My Lords, I sympathise with the Minister as it is every Defra Minister's nightmare to have a foot and mouth outbreak and the introduction of bluetongue into this country. I have three points to make.
	First, on the question of compensation, to my knowledge lambs have been selling at at least £10 a head less than they were at the same time last year—and I think that is probably an underestimate. There have been no reductions in price whatever in the supermarkets. There is still an enormous mark-up. Someone, somewhere, in the middle of the food chain, is making an awful lot of money. Will the Government please address that question? If the retail price at the supermarkets was lower, consumption would go up, which would help to solve some of the problems.
	Secondly, on Pirbright and the Institute for Animal Health, it seems wrong to me, as a scientist, that there is a research institute and a commercial company on the same site. I suspect that is as a result of something that goes way back about 15 years, when the then Prime Minister talked about "near-market research". I call that development. I cannot see how an out-and-out commercial company and a research body can be on the same site and there can be adequate control of the site and all the issues with the virus escaping. Why is not the virus sterilised and put in a particular place? Why is it going into the drains? That seems quite extraordinary.
	Finally, bluetongue is a very serious disease for agriculture. I make a plea to the Minister that he resists the extension of the bluetongue zones except for those circumstances affecting abattoirs, which need to be addressed. Unless there is another outbreak outside the zone, clearly that should be the only circumstances where the zone is affected because most of the cattle and sheep are in the west and the north of the United Kingdom.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I shall take the last point first because it hinges on the answer that I gave to the noble Baroness. Even looking cursorily at the zone changes, you cannot bring in an abattoir and a market without bringing in some farms. There is a balance to be struck here and it is not easy. The noble Lord talked about a nightmare for Defra Ministers but I have to say that it has not been a nightmare for Defra Ministers. I am extremely proud to be a Defra Minister during this period. Staff cancelled their holidays and came in the following day because they knew what would happen. Literally hundreds are involved in this 24/7 operation, both at the foot and mouth local disease control centre in Guildford and at the bluetongue centre in Bury St Edmunds. It has not been a nightmare.
	A plan was published that drew on the lessons learnt from the previous outbreak, and that plan has been meticulously followed. We are having that reviewed by the person who reviewed the first outbreak. We have learnt lessons. One lesson that we have learnt, which was not in the plan, is that if you start culling in the field, you must immediately put an air control zone around it. Press helicopters were our biggest single problem; they disturbed the animals and the vets could not do their job. We had to introduce air exclusion zones but we did not do so to start with because it did not cross our mind that helicopters would be used and would create serious problems for us.
	As regards Pirbright being a joint site, noble Lords are quite right that in the past the reason for that was probably to create a marketing synergy. Although this was not part of the discussions that we had leading to the publication of the report, I am told that there is no good scientific reason why they should be collocated. There are two private sector operations—a very small one as well as the large one. The viruses were not supposed to be put into the drains live; that is the whole point of the exercise. There was a two-stage process and they should have been completely dealt with by the time they got to the point where they escaped. Work is going on there to deal with this issue in terms of heat treatment and everything else, but the situation is not satisfactory. I say to the noble Countess—I did not address this point—that the laxity at Pirbright, to which I referred, is set out in Professor Spratt's report. He refers to the lack of a record of the lorries that went on and off the site. There was no record either of where they came from or went to. There are a lot of lapses in that respect.

Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, I declare an interest as I have rare breed breeding sheep going to Murton market on Saturday and Skipton market on Sunday. Does the Minister agree with me that market staff, as well as the farming community, have also had very many difficulties? Would it not be safer to have the animal research laboratories on town sites rather than near farms? As regards bluetongue, does the female midge spread the disease as the female mosquito spreads malaria?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, on the latter point, I am afraid that I do not know the sex of the midges, but I know that our midges—British midges—have now caused this, hence our announcement after a few days that we had bluetongue. That is why the first few cases did not amount to a bluetongue outbreak. We had to know that transmission was being caused by our midges biting our cattle and that they were giving it to other cattle or to sheep. I freely admit that there has been pressure all round on the industry in respect of the markets. That applies, of course, to those animals that go to market. Not all sheep and cattle go to market. Some people will not have anything to do with markets; they want to go straight from farm to slaughter. Pigs are not dealt with in that way. However, the fact is that the whole of the food chain has been disturbed at that level. As regards whether there has been profiteering, time will tell. People are looking into the issues raised by the noble Lord, which I did not address. I am in no position to do that. Clearly, there has been a drop in the price at the supplier level which has not been reflected in the price in the retail sector. That indicates that someone is taking a larger cut somewhere in the chain.

Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, does the Minister not realise that for the breeding people this is the crucial time when the tups are put in with the ewes? It is a question of breeding, not just slaughter.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, even if foot and mouth and bluetongue were put to bed today, this will affect us for months. It will affect us well into next year because it is affecting the cycle of production, and we appreciate that.

Lord Blaker: My Lords, I declare an interest as a farmer in West Sussex, which, as everybody knows, is the county next door to Surrey. Therefore, I am concerned about foot and mouth. I am not affected by it at the moment but my family firm had diversified. We no longer have any animals. We were encouraged by the Government to diversify and we are doing so. That means that a lot of people come on to our farm. Therefore, I am much concerned by the fact that the Minister said emphatically that there is no compensation except for culling. I cannot cull any people who come on to my farm. Therefore, I would look for other means of being compensated if the worst happened and I suffered severely, as I might. I shall write to the Minister for further details about the company that runs the Pirbright establishment and exactly what the relationship is between that establishment and the Government. The Minister referred to a report. It is not entirely clear to me whether that report is published and available to the public or whether it is an internal governmental report. If the report has not already established the liability of the company that runs the Pirbright establishment, will further studies be made?

Lord Rooker: My Lords, on the last point, external lawyers and representatives are looking at these reports. Everything will be published. Nothing will be unpublished. We have published an enormous amount. We published Professor Spratt's report and the HSE report a few days before what turned out to be the second outbreak that we found, so there was a gap.
	I am very grateful to the noble Lord for raising the issue of diversification because it gives me a chance to make a further point. I met the three farmers concerned with the first three cases—one of whose cattle did not have foot and mouth but were slaughtered—Mr Pride, Mr Gunner and Mr Emerson. They were the three farmers who had first discovered the disease. All of them are model farmers. They had diversified into all sorts of businesses, which I shall not recite. When I had a brief discussion with them on neutral territory in a farm shop, which was the first time they had all met, I raised the thorny issue of insurance. Mr Pride told me that he was insured. He said that he had his farm shop insured for fire, burglary and all the kinds of risk that you insure a business for. He had even paid an extra premium to cover interruption of business. I never asked him whom he was insured with and I do not know to this day. However, the small print in the insurance stated that anything related to foot and mouth was not covered. I certainly intend to follow this up with the financial institutions and the banks. Mr Pride was sold an insurance policy to cover interruption to business. I do not refer to his farm business. His farm shop was covered for interruption to business. However, he is caught out in the small print. As a Minister I cannot talk about cost sharing and responsibility policy on disease control and animals when people are left in that position. I understand that there is a difficulty with insuring crops in the ground and other issues and with the cost of some of these exotic diseases, but that kind of short-changing is a serious business that must be pursued.

Lord Blaker: My Lords, if I may add to what I said, it is very difficult indeed to get insurance for these things. I have insurance for avian flu—that was last year's disease. I got it last year with great difficulty. I am not insured for the other things.

Lord Plumb: My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Statement. He will be aware, of course, that farmers will be relieved that there is a package of compensation, which I hope will be sent to them as quickly as possible. It is a question not just of money but of the recognition of the enormous problem that exists. It does not just exist in the areas of foot and mouth or bluetongue; it exists in areas where people cannot move their stock, as the Minister fully recognised.
	The noble Lord, Lord Livsey, said that the price of sheep is down as much as £10 a head. I can tell him that even in Wales this morning lambs were being sold at £10 a head. That situation is very grave indeed, because that is the livelihood of those farmers who have lambs on the hills and have just got to sell them. They have no alternative; the lambs cannot be left, because then there would be a massive welfare problem.
	I speak as a farmer, but I am grateful that the Statement said that £1 million will be sent to the Addington Fund and, I hope, to the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution, of which I happen to be president—I declare an interest. The requests that have been made during the past month have been exceptional and we have had to take on people to deal with the problems that have been coming forward. Those problems may seem small, but they are there, and people need to be helped. Farmers will be grateful. The Minister said that the money will be paid to those in greatest need. That may be a problem, because those who will be in greatest need have not yet fully met the problem. That will want a bit of analysis in paying out the money.
	I have two points. On bluetongue, the message that I have received from farmers in other parts of Europe where the problem has been growing extensively in recent times is that stopping animal movements is not necessarily a solution. We will probably experience that. Stopping the midges is a solution, but that is much more difficult. I understand that progress is being made on the production of vaccine, and I hope that every support can be given to speed that up. On the other points, those who are suffering are those in marginal areas who are being forced to sell. Sheep migration is necessary, and one realises in that sense that movement must continue. I hope therefore that all relief can be given so that that can happen as quickly as possible.

Lord Rooker: My Lords, I have to be brief, because we are nearly at the time limit. I hope that I have covered the central issues that the noble Lord raised on finance, and I have shown that there is a degree of understanding about the pressure on the business. Bluetongue is difficult. It is a new disease, but we are not the first to have it. We have been expecting it. It is almost impossible to deal with because of the way in which it is transmitted. Therefore, the vaccine would be a route and I understand that it is not far away. One of the issues about the vaccine is that, where there is a need, there is a market, and it will be supplied. Therefore it is clear now that, where there was not before, there is probably going to be a market in the northern parts of Europe for a bluetongue vaccine.

Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

Consideration of amendments on Report resumed on Clause 3.
	[Amendments Nos. 11 to 16 not moved.]

Lord Dixon-Smith: moved Amendment No. 17:
	Clause 3, page 3, line 22, at end insert—
	"( ) making its own proposal in accordance with the result of consultation with members of the local electorate;"

Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, Amendments Nos. 17 and 28 are designed to put greater flexibility into this part of the Bill by allowing local authorities to send back, in response to a request or a designation, an opinion of their own, and to permit greater time for them to do so. This would be too late for people who are already well down the line on this and whose fate has been sealed, unless the Government hold up some of the procedures that have been started. This amendment does something that the Bill does not; it makes a real allowance for the voice of local people.
	It is instructive to read what has happened in both Durham and Cornwall with the proposals that have been forced out. I will quote only the Cornwall response, where on average over 80 per cent of the electorate in the district decided that they did not want a unitary county. What a surprise. I get an appalling sense of déjà-vu. In about my third year of involvement in local government, there was a royal commission. It became known as the Maud report on the structure of local government. Maud looked at the structure as it existed objectively, and he came up with a proposal for unitary local government across the country based on what was essentially a county structure.
	Of course, small counties became larger and the large counties became smaller and the districts across the country were opposed anyway. The districts, remarkably, were much more likely to be contiguous with constituencies. Not particularly unsurprisingly, the Maud report disappeared into a very deep pigeonhole. With the benefit of a great deal of hindsight, sometimes I think it is a pity that the Maud report was not implemented, because we would not have had some 50 years of destabilisation. There has been constant irritation and movement, which has been largely inspired centrally supposedly to rationalise the structure of local government. I have regarded that as not particularly helpful when one comes to consider properly what local government is about. It is about the services that are provided to local people.
	The amendments are small, but they are important. I hope that the Minister might give us some hope that it is worthwhile considering at this stage—she still has time to consider it—and that the amendments might be worthy of introduction; or that greater flexibility in some form might be worthy of introduction on Third Reading, if she is not prepared to accept the amendments now. This is a small matter, which does not affect the substance of the Bill. It would ease some of the pressures that local authorities feel they are being put under by what is being proposed and by what is happening on the ground at present. It would be a concession that would improve the Government's standing with local government if it were made. I beg to move.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I wish I could give the noble Lord some comfort, especially because of the reasonable way in which he introduced the amendments. I cannot do that, or accept the amendments. I will run over some of the reasons why we think that the amendments raise interesting but problematic questions, particularly Amendment No. 17. It relates to the consultation that must be carried out by local authorities on their proposals, with the opportunity to make representations to the Secretary of State on an alternative proposal by the Boundary Committee. Amendment No. 17 would have the effect of allowing the council, when responding to an invitation, to make a proposal reflecting the results of the consultation with its electorate.
	I understand the motives behind that. Regarding the consultation process as whole, perhaps I may briefly comment on the process of involving local people. The whole approach to the restructuring process was to enable local authorities, as democratically elected bodies, to decide whether to seek unitary status. One of the key tests that we set out clearly was that the proposals brought forward in the invitation must have support from a range of key partners, stakeholders, service users and citizens. It was a deliberate form of words, because we wanted there to be a formative consultation process, particularly to ensure that local partners and key agencies could respond and contribute to proposals, because they were the people most affected by them. It was also to ensure that local authorities sought the views of local people in the way that they thought best. Among the key consultees have been primary care trusts, strategic health authorities, police authorities, learning and skills councils, universities and a host of others that I could not begin to list.
	Within that notion of broad support is the principle that local authorities must show that they have involved local people in whatever way is seen as most effective. Councils have adopted a variety of ways of doing that—public opinion polls, local referendums in come cases, citizens' juries, citizens' panels and surveys. I am not saying that any method was better than the others. The noble Lord quoted Cornwall, but in Cheshire, for example, the county council commissioned BMG to undertake face-to-face interviews, complemented by a series of focus groups across Cheshire. The county carried out a random telephone survey of 1,200 households and the district commissioned an Ipsos MORI survey of residents' opinions throughout Cheshire. A ballot of Crewe and Nantwich residents was conducted by the Electoral Commission and there was a survey of opinion among members of the Crewe and Nantwich citizens' panels. I could list all the methods that the nine successful local authorities used. Some of them took place before the proposals were initially submitted and provided key evidence about how they stacked up.
	We have certainly met the principle of consultation. I was struck when the noble Lord quoted the case of Cornwall. The district councils commissioned that survey, and districts have often commissioned surveys that have come to different conclusions. We have seen that throughout this process. From the outset we have made it clear what we would be looking for in proposals from democratically elected councils—and that was accepted by them. In particular, we wanted to be able to see a range and depth of support that would show that the criteria for viability could be met—that the proposals would enhance leadership and that they would lead to greater local engagement and better services. There was support for that view and, therefore, viability. It was also clear that, while we expected local councils to seek the opinion of local people, it could not be the decisive factor. It was not the decisive factor in 1992. We made it clear that no group of people or stakeholders would have a veto over the proposal. From the beginning we were clear that the proposal could not be determined by a separate popular mandate. The local representative council making the decision has always been uppermost in our mind.
	It has been interesting to look in detail at the results of all local polls and inquiries in all the affected areas and to see the variety of opinion expressed and the many different ways that have been employed to seek it. The Secretary of State rightly made it clear that results should be treated with a degree of caution in relation to the balance of opinion, not least because, depending on who asks the question, the districts and counties have come up with different responses to their surveys—as the noble Lord exemplified. It interesting that in Shropshire a review by Professors Rallings and Thrasher, who studied the outcomes, concluded that the process was not flawed but contained inevitable problems. Therefore, we took a series of decisions that were both principled and sensible. We had to make it clear that there was a broad range of support.
	For the reasons I have explained, I hope that the noble Lord will accept that we have thought hard about this issue, but we cannot go along with the amendment.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market: My Lords, before the Minister sits down, perhaps she might say a word or two about how the process that has been carried out and that which is envisaged take account of the views of areas that might not be affected by an immediate restructuring but will be affected by future processed. For example, in Bedford, which we discussed earlier, people and organisations within a surrounding authority might not want a unitary authority, but they may be forced to have one because the urban centre of Bedford has achieved its goal of a becoming a unitary authority. In my area in Suffolk, people living in Lowestoft may not have commented on proposals for a unitary Ipswich because they may not have realised that a possible consequence of a unitary Ipswich would be a reorganisation of the districts around it.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, all that I can say at the moment is that it will depend on the nature of the invitation made to the residual area in south and mid Bedfordshire. I am fairly certain that we would invite local councils there to proceed on a basis similar to the current one. Perhaps the noble Baroness will allow me to take that matter away and think about it in light of the discussions that are proceeding. I would not want to be categorical about that at the moment.
	Amendment No. 28 seeks to alter our process for restructuring by increasing from four weeks to two months the time available for individuals to make representations to the Secretary of State on an alternative proposal made by the boundary committee. We had this debate in Committee and I am afraid that our position has not moved, because the existing process of consultation is pretty long and fairly adequate. We are not convinced that this amendment is necessary. It would increase the period for representations to ensure that individuals have sufficient opportunities, but there are numerous opportunities for communities and stakeholders to make their views known.
	Perhaps I may explain. Where the boundary committee is minded to make an alternative proposal, it must first publish a draft and take such steps as it considers sufficient to secure that persons who may be interested are informed of that proposal and of the time in which they can make representations. It is a 12-week consultation. Subsequently the boundary committee must take these representations into account and if it decides to make the proposal to the Secretary of State, it must inform anyone who previously made representations on a particular proposal that it has made a proposal to the Secretary of State. The committee must also inform those people that they will have four weeks to make representations to the Secretary of State. If we were to extend this window for representations it would only increase the period of uncertainty and disruption and would not be beneficial for anyone involved.
	There is ample opportunity to make representations about an alternative proposal. It is hardly about collusion behind closed doors, because we want to ensure that proper judgments are made in response to peoples' feelings and experience. Although I know that the noble Lord will be disappointed, I hope that he will accept that explanation.

Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, the Minister has confirmed to me that if you open this particular Pandora's box, you finish up with more dissatisfied people than was originally the case. There are many possible solutions, but only one can be implemented. The majority of people, if they were asked a straightforward question, would probably say, "Actually, we don't agree with that conclusion", because they all want something different. One has to accept that.
	This is not a satisfactory situation and it never will be. I am disappointed in the Minister's response and I am sorry about that, but not particularly surprised. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendment No. 18 not moved.]

Lord Dixon-Smith: moved Amendment No. 19:
	Clause 3, page 3, line 25, at end insert—
	"(c) declining the invitation; or(d) declining the direction"

Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, this is another fairly simple amendment. It would give any authority on the receiving end of an invitation or direction the option of refusing it. Amendment No. 19 would complement the provisions of Amendment No. 17, although we did not get anywhere with that. It would give local authorities the option simply to refuse an invitation or direction instead of having to comply with it in one form or another. The intention is that local authorities would not be able to take such a decision without the consent of the local electorate obtained either by consultation or referendum. That is reinforced later on by an amendment on referendums.
	The Minister stated clearly in Committee that no such powers were needed because by implication an invitation can be turned down. However, Clause 3 seems to confirm otherwise. Currently, when presented with a so-called invitation or direction, a local authority can respond in two ways; either by,
	"making its own proposal in accordance with the invitation or direction; or making a proposal, in accordance with the invitation or direction".
	That is how lines 22 to 25 are worded on page 3 of the Bill. I find that a particularly awkward multiple choice.
	Clause 3 demonstrates unequivocally that the law would expect authorities to accept an invitation whether alone or in conjunction with some other authority. There appears to be a clear expectation that an invitation will be accepted because there is no possibility of it being declined. The Bill provides for a one-way road.
	We have presented a series of measures that would have ensured greater flexibility and choice, but the Government have so far chosen to reject them. This is one of those options and I hope that the Minister will consider it seriously. I beg to move.

Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, we support the noble Lord on this matter. This is not the first time that we find ourselves wondering whether the language in the Bill is the English language as we know it. The noble Lord is right in pointing out that while there may be different arguments about invitations and directions, an invitation should be capable of the response, "Thanks, but no thanks".
	The Minister, either in her letter of 1 October or at another time when we mentioned this issue, discussed whether the Bill should allow provisions to remain on the books for future restructuring. She has said that it is important for the Government to have invitations as a tool for two reasons. First, they help to tidy up areas affected by decisions currently being taken, which we have talked about already this afternoon. Secondly, they are useful if there is, to use the Minister's word an "appetite" in the future on the part of local authorities to restructure, in which case they will tell the Government and the Government will issue an invitation. Therefore, this debate crosses into the question of whether this is a time-limited offer. It also asks, "When is an invitation not an invitation?".
	We seem to have reached a point in the Bill of having to ask for interpretation—I almost said translation—of some of the provisions. It is sad that the Bill remains in need of interpretation and that matters need to be put on the record, since we are so nearly at the end of its passage through Parliament. Having got that off my chest, I will try not to make that point again tonight.

Baroness Maddock: My Lords, I wish to refer to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, and I declare an interest as a councillor of Berwick-upon-Tweed Borough Council and a member of Northumberland County Council, both of which are now engaged in this process. We knew that the invitation was coming, and the county council was happy to take it up. Many of the districts would have preferred enhanced working together, but when they saw the writing on the wall in what was happening at the county level, they put in a bid. Although you could say that some of this is free thinking, you get tied up in what other people are doing and it is almost impossible to act independently.
	I will provide the House with more detail about what is actually happening on the ground when we come to an amendment to Clause 21 because I am not sure that the Government foresaw some things that are now happening. I hope that the Minister can give us some reassurance tonight that the voices of those who actually have to live under these authorities and pay their taxes to them will be heard.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I seem to be doomed to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith. I must tell my colleagues on the Liberal Benches that I am happy to put whatever I can on the record. With their co-operation, we tried in the summer to make sure that we teased out some of those things that were of necessity obscuring the Bill and we cleared away some of the undergrowth. However, if the House finds it helpful, I am happy to do that as much as possible as we go through the Bill without protracting the process.
	We debated aspects of Amendment No. 19 in Committee, but there is a significant difference because it now also relates to councils being able to decline a direction to submit a unitary proposal.
	It is worth repeating that in Committee I explained that an invitation was just that—an invitation—and that the document invited local authorities, if they so wished, to make a proposal for future unitary local government structures for their areas. We received 26 proposals but there were numerous areas from which no proposals were forthcoming. My interpretation of that would be, "Thanks, but no thanks", with local authorities indicating that they were simply not interested and some areas looking for enhanced two-tier working. In the areas which did not take up our invitation, it was, in effect, "declined". I return to the point that I made in Committee: we believe that it is unnecessary to make explicit provision for this matter in the Bill, as it is a matter of common sense.
	I turn to the right to decline a direction. I do not want to reiterate what I said earlier to noble Lords because I think that I made the limitations on the power of direction as clear as I could. I have set out that our approach is devolutionary and that proposals will come forward from elected local authorities. As I stressed, in order to bring the round of restructuring to an orderly conclusion, it may be necessary to direct a local authority to submit a proposal for unitary local government if that is the only way to enable the other local authority in the picture to go ahead with the proposal. As we discussed earlier, this would be a proposal from a democratically elected council.
	I also explained, and I think the House agreed, that the direction power is time-limited until 25 January 2008. I assured noble Lords that we would use it only to deal with an area which was residual to one of the proposals which we announced the Secretary of State was minded to implement. It may be worth stressing that we worked with the Local Government Association to narrow the scope of the direction power, and it is generally content with our position. I hope that, on that basis, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, the Minister is doing her best to disappoint me very politely, just as I am doing my best to seduce her very politely, if I may put it that way. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for her support in this matter. Certainly, in all the conventions that I have known in life, an invitation is an invitation and can be refused. The question is whether it can be refused here. The noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, made a very important point: that in going down this track, if one person goes in a particular direction, inevitably everyone else should think very carefully about where they are going and whether they want to go in the same or some other direction. Decisions can become confused and, rather than think exclusively of your own interests, you begin to think in the wider, and not necessarily the logical, sense. This is a Pandora's box situation and I do not think that it is a good one to be in for one moment.
	The Minister said that the amendment was not necessary because she thought that the flexibility was already there. If that is so, it is not necessary for her to oppose the amendment. As it will not affect anything from her point of view, she can perfectly well accept it. I think that we should test the opinion of the House on this and, to that extent, I shall have to disappoint the Minister rather than seduce her.

On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 19) shall be agreed to?
	Their Lordships divided: Contents, 91; Not-Contents, 139.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.
	[Amendments Nos. 20 to 22 not moved.]
	Clause 4 [Request for Boundary Committee for England's advice]:
	[Amendments Nos. 23 and 24 not moved.]
	Clause 5 [Boundary Committee's powers]:
	[Amendment No. 25 not moved.]

Baroness Andrews: moved Amendment No. 26:
	Clause 5, page 4, line 28, leave out "not currently a local government area" and insert "currently outside all local government areas"

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, we now have a change of pace and perhaps I can bring some aid and comfort to the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith. We are bringing forward a number of technical amendments to Part 1. I wrote to noble Lords on 1 October 2007 setting out why these amendments are required, I will briefly cover some of the key points for the record.
	Amendments Nos. 26, 34 and 41 are drafting improvements. We wish to put it beyond doubt that a proposed area may not extend into an area that is currently outside all local government areas; for example, a part of a Welsh county, the City of London or one of the Temples. Therefore, we are amending the Bill to clarify that proposals for unitary local government submitted under the Bill's provisions may not extend to such an area.
	Amendment No. 31 makes a minor drafting amendment at Clause 7 to clarify that the Secretary of State may decide not to implement a joint proposal for more than one local authority. The existing wording may have suggested that a joint proposal would always be implemented, which clearly is not necessarily the case.
	Amendment No. 32 to Clause 7 allows the Secretary of State to request further information from the Boundary Committee relating to an alternative proposal for structural change that it has submitted. This provision will enable the Secretary of State to seek information before making a decision on the Boundary Committee's recommendations. This provision shows consistency with Clause 4(2) under which the Secretary of State can ask the Boundary Committee for advice in relation to a proposal submitted by a local authority.
	We are also proposing a drafting amendment—Amendment No. 36—to Clause 10, under which the Secretary of State can ask the Boundary Committee for advice or information in relation to a recommendation of a boundary change. This amendment will make it clear that the information or advice that the Secretary of State can request is on any matter relating to the recommendation. This provision will ensure that the Secretary of State may request information and advice, for example, in relation to changes to principal council electoral arrangements and/or parish boundaries in parish council arrangements which may need to be made within an order under Clause 10.
	Amendment No. 35 inserts a new paragraph (e) into Clause 8(4), again, to put beyond doubt the fact that any recommendation for boundary change must ensure that the current pattern of local government is retained across England. This pattern is unitary counties, counties comprising a number of districts, metropolitan and non-metropolitan, and London boroughs.
	Amendment No. 36 ensures that the Boundary Committee cannot recommend the abolition of a local government area which will lead to a gap in the pattern of local government areas in England. So, for example, if the committee can recommend the abolition of one district and the merger of its area with that of another district, the committee could not simply recommend the abolition of a district under the power in Clause 8(3)(b), as that would evidently leave a gap in the pattern of local government areas.
	Amendments Nos. 37 and 38 make technical drafting changes to Clause 11, so that orders can contain provision for matters connected to the implementation of a proposal or recommendation.
	Amendment No. 47 makes a technical amendment to Clause 15 which ensures that it is clear that statutory instruments made under previous legislation can be amended by an order under Clauses 7 and 10, no matter when those statutory instruments are made.
	Amendments Nos. 224, 247, 248 and 254 make necessary changes to Schedules 1, 6 and 19. These amendments are technical in nature and ensure that the provisions we are introducing can be used effectively and make improvements to the drafting of a number of clauses. I beg to move.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, perhaps I can go back to Amendment No. 36. The Minister very kindly gave us a pre-brief of what the amendments were about. I am bound to say that Amendment No. 36 did not seem to stack up with what I have got written down. Perhaps we could look at it again.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, with pleasure. Noble Lords will understand that I am reading from a very prescribed text. I see that the noble Baroness has in front of her the letter that I sent. We are also proposing a drafting amendment—Amendment No. 36—to Clause 10, under which the Secretary of State can ask the Boundary Committee for advice or information in relation to a recommendation of a boundary change. This amendment will make it clear that the information or advice that the Secretary of State can request is on any matter relating to the recommendation. I hope that that clarifies the point.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, that is very kind of the Minister. The information in the letter was a little like shorthand and it did not sound the same.

Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, perhaps I can ask some questions and make some brief points. On Amendment No. 31, it seems to me that to have to spell out the fact that the Secretary of State may decide not to do something after consultation rather begs the question of what is meant by consultation. That is a rhetorical point, not a question. If the Secretary of State is required to consult and may then do something, one would have thought he might also not do something, otherwise what is the point of consultation?
	In Amendment No. 32—there is an awful sense of déjà vu about this—do the instances of the term "may" in the proposed new subsections (6) and (7)—
	"the Secretary of State may request the Boundary Committee to provide him with information,"
	and,
	"the Boundary Committee may provide"
	it—mean "shall"? I suspect they might.
	In Amendment No. 35, paragraph (e)(i) has an instance of a county "comprising one district". I am confused as to whether that is a unitary authority. I had thought that unitaries were technically districts rather than counties.
	The meaning of Amendment No. 47 is quite clear, and the Minister has explained that it allows an order to be made under this Bill, when it becomes an Act, which affects previous legislation. That seems to mean that one can make an order under new legislation altering previous primary legislation. I am confused about the constitutional position here. I suppose the short question is whether this is something for which there are many precedents but one has simply not noticed them.
	Finally, Amendment No. 224 determines the order of retirement of members. The Minister looks perplexed. Have I got the right amendment?

Baroness Andrews: Which amendment?

Baroness Hamwee: It is Amendment No. 224, my Lords. It is on page 29, to Schedule 1:
	"insert 'and the order of retirement'".
	It is something the Secretary of State can do. Can the Minister explain the criteria for determining the order of retirement?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, that is a challenging set of questions. I did not expect to be interrogated in such detail; I thought noble Lords would take what I said absolutely at face value. Clearly, I can never do that.
	First, on the word "may" meaning "shall" in asking the Boundary Committee and getting advice, it means "may". The Secretary of State can ask the Boundary Committee. That was the term I used when I explained it, so it means "may".

Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, while we are on that, the next bit is,
	"the Boundary Committee may provide the information".
	So the Boundary Committee could say, "Go away, we are not going to tell you".

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, it could mean that. Is it unlikely, though, is it not? I do not know what powers we have to compel the Boundary Committee to provide information; I will have to take advice on that.
	The next question was whether the district is a unitary county, when most of the criteria address unitary district councils and the area of the district has a coterminous status with the county area. I will have to write to the noble Baroness on that point to make it absolutely clear.
	On Amendment No. 47, which makes a technical amendment to Clause 15, my understanding is that we are talking about statutory instruments made under previous legislation. They can be amended by an order under Clauses 7 and 10. There are precedents for those changes to be made.
	On Amendment No. 224, the noble Baroness asked for the criteria. My background notes say that Amendments Nos. 224 and 254 to Schedules 1 and 19 make a further repeal to Section 17 of the Local Government Act 1992, removing the words,
	"and the order of retirement".
	They are no longer required, as parish councils all retire at the same time because they can only operate whole council elections. Does that make it clear for the noble Baroness?

Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, it says "insert" those words, so—

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, because the noble Baroness has raised some serious, albeit technical, issues, I will ensure that a letter answering all those points in detail is placed in the Library.

On Question, amendment agreed to.
	[Amendment No. 27 not moved.]
	Clause 6 [Boundary Committee's procedure]:
	[Amendments Nos. 28 and 29 not moved.]

Baroness Hanham: moved Amendment No. 30:
	After Clause 6, insert the following new Clause—
	"Referendum in case of proposals for single tier of local government
	(1) This section applies where a proposal for a single tier of local government is made under section 2 or 5.
	(2) The principal authority for the county concerned must hold a referendum on the proposal before any steps are taken to implement it.
	(3) Notwithstanding section 7(1) below, if the result of a referendum under subsection (2) is to reject the proposal the Secretary of State must not implement the proposal.
	(4) In this section "the county concerned" has the same meaning as in section 5(6).
	(5) The Secretary of State must make regulations specifying the arrangements to be made for the holding of any referendum under this section."

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, this amendment follows on from the subject of consultation. We have briefly discussed it before; it would require any authority putting forward a proposal for a unitary government to hold a referendum. The amendment would tie the action of the Secretary of State into the result of the referendum—if the referendum went against the proposal, the Secretary of State would have to abide by that—so that local people would be at the heart of the decision whether or not to change their structure of local government.
	Previously, the Minister has queried who the electorate would be in that referendum and who would call it. Our revised proposals for a referendum in Amendment No. 30 clearly set out that any referendum undertaken would include all those who would come under the final proposal. Under our amendment, the county concerned takes on the same definition as that in Clause 5. In other words, our proposal for a referendum would slot in nicely with the process proposed by the Bill. It would be part and parcel of a local authority's response to an invitation or direction from the Secretary of State. There would be no sense of the elaborate arbitrating between the already made-up views of dithering local authorities or the Boundary Commission, as the Minister suggested in Committee. For the simple reason that there was a referendum part of the package, no authority would make decisions until it had consulted those likely to be affected.
	That is the right way around: electorate first and politicians later. It about time that that order of importance was recognised formally in this process. The structural change of government is so long-lasting, affecting every aspect of local government, that it is only right and proper that the electorate should be the final judge of any changes.
	To briefly review what has been happening until now and the results of the process so far, there have been a number of ways of testing some local opinion, as the Minister said earlier. There have been stakeholder consultations, but they tend to involve local business groups, PCTs and other groups of people. There have been focus groups, but they are pretty refined in terms of the numbers who take part. There have been citizens' juries, but they, too, involve a limited number of people. There has been the odd survey but, as far as I am aware, there has been no requirement that all members of the electorate must have the opportunity to put forward their views.
	This becomes even more important when we realise that, of the nine authorities that have been announced as being those that the Secretary of State is considering agreeing to, four—Bedford, Chester, Ipswich and Essex—have been asked to undertake further work, so there is no guarantee that the results will come about or that anybody wants them to come about. In the remaining five—Cornwall, Durham, Northumberland, Shropshire and Cheshire—there is pitted opposition. I do not think that we should overlook that. I know that the noble Baroness said that there would clearly be opposition in places, but this is huge opposition, not mini-opposition. In Cornwall, for example, there was a local poll, which, if we extrapolate it, shows that 97,000 of the electorate would be opposed to the proposal with only 21,000 supporting it. They are significant numbers. North Cornwall District Council surveyed 6,000 of its residents to gauge whether there was any local support for the unitary proposals and 82 per cent were against the proposals. All the way through the Cornish proposals, there has been opposition.

Lord Howie of Troon: My Lords, the noble Baroness mentioned a poll in Cornwall, and then said "extrapolate" and produced some figures. Can she tell me what the actual figures for the poll were?

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, 71,722 residents voted in the local poll, giving an overall turnout in the four districts of 27 per cent. The poll provided the largest ever public opinion poll result on local government in Cornwall. If the results were extrapolated across the whole of Cornwall, that would result in the figures that I have given. That confirms my point that, although it was not a referendum of all those who are likely to be affected, it was a significant enough sample—it is quite a lot of people—to indicate that there was a substantial majority against. If there had been a referendum, we would have been able to say that that would be the outcome.
	The Minister will be aware that there is great confusion in Cheshire. There are proposals for two unitaries or one unitary and, by and large, the people of Cheshire do not want any unitaries, other than those that they already have, so there is opposition there. In Northumberland, there is opposition to the proposals that have been put forward.
	It is important that the electorate should be given the opportunity to see whether they like what is being put forward for them in their name. The invitations were issued at the beginning of the year, very shortly after the legislation was introduced. There was very little time for anybody to take any view of what was going on. The results were announced in July, again long before any of us had the opportunity to see this legislation through. In fact, it is very much in the Government's interest to allow a referendum to be held because they would then truly be able to say that there was support across the piece—if there was support across the piece—for this to happen. I beg to move.

Lord Howarth of Newport: My Lords, I am sorry to say that I feel that this amendment is cynical in spirit. It seems to me to be a wheeze. This wheeze of calling for a referendum on proposals for a single tier of local government is a palpable delaying tactic because the Conservative Party, with its strong position in the shire counties, naturally does not like the thought that communities within those shire counties might be able to come out from under and have some larger degree of independence from it. It is also a smokescreen for Conservative uncertainty and division. Across the country, the Conservatives are very unsure of how to respond to each situation as it presents itself locally.
	One must ask on what principle the Conservative Party is calling for these referendums. It is no part of our constitutional tradition—and the Conservative Party ought to respect constitutional tradition and precedent—that referendums should be required when there is a redrawing of local authority boundaries. The Conservative Party has become quite promiscuous in the matter of referendums. I heard William Hague saying at the time of the Conservative Party conference that if the Conservative Party had its way there would be referendums every time there was some redrawing of the administrative relationships—the respective powers, however minor—between the Government of this country and the European Union. Of course, for major constitutional issues, it is part of our tradition; the precedents are there. It is right that referendums should be held when there is a question of major constitutional change, but we cheapen the principle of a referendum if it is invoked every time the Conservative Party wants to get itself out of some political inconvenience or embarrassment.
	The Conservatives have got hold of a new idea; historically, they were never concerned. The redrawing of Welsh local government in the early 1990s was highly controversial in parts of Wales but at no point was it suggested that there should be a referendum on that. The Government proceeded with insouciance and indifference towards the opinion of the Welsh. Perhaps even more significantly, in the 1980s the abolition of the Greater London Council was of major importance and caused London to be the only major capital city without municipal government, but the Conservative Government of that time did not contemplate a referendum. If we go back to the period of the Heath Government from 1970 to 1974, a vast restructuring of local government was carried through by the noble Lord, Lord Walker, in which more than a century of tradition was overthrown and the sense of place and identity of very large numbers of people—people in local government and citizens all across the country—was profoundly affronted, but at no point did the Conservatives suggest that there should be a referendum. This seems a pretty opportunistic invocation of the principle that the people should be consulted by means of a referendum.
	If we look at the specifics in the proposal in this amendment, we have to say that it is shockingly imprecise. Who should determine the question? Why should the process be in the hands of the county? The county will, of course, be biased in favour of the status quo: it is not going to want parts of its territory and population to gain independence from its government. Why should it not be in the hands of citizens and their representatives in other areas or other levels of local government?
	Evidently, if the population of a county outweighs the population of the area that is proposed for unitary status, the county will have an enormous political advantage in the process. The hostile propaganda of the county will clearly give powerful momentum and advantage to a "no" campaign, so the whole process of a referendum on the terms proposed in this amendment would be polluted. The amendment, if it became part of the law and we had to do these things, would stack up advantage in favour of the status quo. A vote in such circumstances would have paltry legitimacy. Of course it might happen that the whole thing was treated with indifference by local people, that it turned out to be a yawn and that there was a very low turnout. That is a possibility. Albeit that people feel strongly about identification with their local authorities, it does not unfortunately follow that they would necessarily come out to vote. That way, too, a decision taken by this means would lack legitimacy.

Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, since Cornwall has been called into question, we should get the facts straight about the dominance of county thinking. The whole point of citing Cornwall is that a unitary county was proposed and the poll results throughout the districts of Cornwall quite clearly rejected it. I do not think that we need be quite so afraid, as is being suggested, of what might happen if the public are consulted on these sorts of issues.

Lord Howarth of Newport: My Lords, I do not believe in government by opinion poll. When we are considering something as important as reform of the structures of local government—and the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, observed that these changes could be long-lasting and of very great importance—I think that a very objective and thorough consideration is needed. I certainly would not accept that an opinion poll should determine the outcome of this matter. It is also extremely difficult to pose questions for a referendum that would enable a local public debate and local decisions to be taken on a basis of full information and appropriate objectivity.
	I return for a moment to the reforms of the early 1970s. My noble friend Lady Hollis was resident in Norwich in those days. I was not, but I understand that one of the consequences of those reforms was that Norwich lost its unitary status. Norwich had been an historic county borough for many hundreds of years. This was an instance of how local opinion was overridden in a fairly roughshod and insensitive fashion. Norwich, where I now have the pleasure and privilege to live, is an ancient city. It is one of the most distinguished and most important places not only in East Anglia but in Britain. It is a city with a cathedral, a university and an airport. It is self-evident that it should have unitary status. The Conservatives affronted the people of Norwich when they took away unitary status and they will affront the people of Norwich again if they seek, through procedural tactics and the unpopular and expensive processes of a referendum, to frustrate its return. This is not a respectable amendment and it should be thrown out.

Baroness Hollis of Heigham: My Lords, I shall be brief on the point about a referendum. I think that all of us are supporters of the democratic principle. Those of us who have come from local government rate and respect what local government achieves and does. I, like many others around the Chamber, very much do so.
	The point about a referendum is that it is a snapshot of direct democracy at a single point of time of those eligible to vote. Think about what that means. Does it mean, for example, that the whole of Devon would be pitted against the judgment of the citizens of Exeter? Would we have capping on the expenditure of the county resources against that of, currently, a district council, which probably has only one-fifth or one-tenth of the county resources, and who would ensure that the questions were valid?
	Secondly, and to my mind more important still, what about the groups that are most affected by the possibilities of reorganisation but which have no vote either way? Certainly in the city of Norwich one of the big driving forces for unitary status on enlarged boundaries has been business. The Conservative Party, rightly in my view, has been calling for—I took part in the debate and was cheering on the Front Bench of the Conservative Party—the restoration to local authority of the business rate. Alongside that, you have to build in the ability to listen to what business wants. But business is disfranchised in any debate on a referendum, as are the faith groups, the voluntary organisations and all those organisations that make up the texture of civil life. How do you incorporate them? Not by a referendum.
	What should be going on here—and what I believe is happening from what I know about local government reorganisation—is not a snapshot referendum or a snapshot plebiscite. It is a reiterative process in which people with disparate and often rewardingly different points of view come round a table and work out what makes best sense for their areas; they will work out some of these issues of boundaries, resources, partnerships and local offices. That is the way to do it. That then gets fed through to the Secretary of State, who decides whether enough of a robust case has been made in terms of public support, financial viability, economic growth and the views of business to justify this. Above all, the question is whether as a result you will get a strengthened recognition of the sense of place, which at the end of the day is what local government is about.
	Those are the tests. When it comes to that distinctiveness about the sense of the place, you cannot just do this on a head count with people in Yarmouth, King's Lynn or Cromer voting about what happens in Norwich; it is for the people of Norwich to have a view and for that view to be negotiated with business and all the other interests in the area and put forward for consideration in a reiterative way. That seems to me the sensible way forward. I suspect that those on the Front Bench opposite agree with me, but they are rather stuck on the amendment. I hope that they will not take it forward.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market: My Lords, it seems to me that one of the reasons why we are having this debate with such passion is the deficiencies of the process that led us here. It was not very clear what the framework was in which local authorities were putting forward their bids and making their decisions. That has resulted in a lot of disgruntled people in some of the areas subject to reorganisation. In a sense, with nowhere else to go, the fallback is to say, "Well, we will have a referendum". From these Benches on this occasion, we are not in favour of referendums for dealing with this.
	It is a sad fact that 30 years of central government emasculating local authorities has led to a situation where a lot of people do not understand what their local authority does. What is worse, they do not care all that much. That is a desperately sad state of affairs, but I am afraid that that is where we are. Turnouts in local elections can be quite low. It is worrying to consider what might happen in a referendum in which a decision could be made with a turnout as low as 15 per cent of the public. A referendum is not the same thing as opinion polling because of the differences in the ways that they are carried out, so getting a 27 per cent turnout in an opinion poll would not mean that you would get a turnout anything like that high if you were to have a referendum.
	I agree absolutely with the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, about interest groups. People who have more of an interest in what a local authority does and who are able to articulate that more will be disfranchised by this process. It also strikes me that, even if one were to agree to the principle of a referendum, it would be very difficult to implement it in practical terms. In the case of Norwich, for example, if you only allowed the voters of Norwich to vote, all the people from the surrounding areas who rely on Norwich for services would be unable to vote. If, on the other hand, you have the whole county, the wishes of people living a long way away who perhaps visit Norwich only twice a year could outweigh the wishes of those who live in the city. Whichever way you look at that, it is almost impossible for a referendum to reflect the views that are held in a county as diverse as Norfolk or, indeed, my own county of Suffolk. For those reasons, we do not believe that referendums are the right way to go forward, although I have a lot of sympathy with the intentions of the noble Baroness in dealing with what has been a deficit of local input into the process.

Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, I am interested in the tactic being employed by the Opposition Front Bench in wanting to visit on local government for the first time the instrument of a referendum to determine major issues. The first big issue where a referendum has been used that I can recall was in 1975 on whether we should endorse our entry into the Common Market—a great issue, a massive issue. Based on the representations that I received, the people in my constituency of Edmonton voted by two to one to stay in the Common Market. I received three letters: two of them were in favour of staying in; one was against. The tactic is to try to read into, misinterpret and deliberately deceive the will of the people by referendum.
	The noble Baroness said that a referendum would give you a proper opinion and settle the issue. She knows very well that once the referendum has been taken and the result is declared, automatically the people who have lost the referendum continue their campaign and work until eventually they find either another device or get another referendum. I start from the principle of having been in local government—I am no longer active, but am in touch. Local government does not get it right all the time. Who are we talking about when we talk about elected councils? When a council is elected, every voter in the district has the opportunity to colour the complexion of the council. That is the best referendum that we will ever get. That is duly organised, supported and campaigned for at a local election. You win some and you lose some.
	In 1985-86, I was in this Chamber as the murder of the GLC was enacted. After a paragraph in the Tory manifesto, they decided not to give the people of London the opportunity to say whether they wanted to keep it or not. There was a national referendum through a manifesto and a general election. The spokesman for that party has the audacity to come here to say, "We believe that people ought to have their say on these matters". That is wrong. The Government's approach is to be careful to try to take on board what are called the stakeholders or the special interest groups.
	As my friends from Norwich know, I support the Magpies, because I come from Newcastle. We have heard the voice of the Canaries, because the Canaries are the Norwich football team. As they always do, they have spoken good sense, but on this point, they have brought into the debate practical illustrations supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Scott. I very much hope that the opposition spokesmen will recognise that this is not a runner. If they decide to run it tonight, I hope that they will get soundly thrashed.

Lord Smith of Leigh: My Lords, I am sorry to intervene again on this, but there is an important point here. We all want these reforms and structural changes to be made with public support, but I agree with my noble friends that a referendum is exactly the wrong way to go about that.
	There are two fundamental dangers in using a referendum to test public opinion. One is that you get differential turnout. Any study of any election shows that people are much more likely to vote against something than to vote for it. If you are in favour, you assume that it is going to happen and you stay at home to watch the telly. It is those who have a really strong opinion who get out to vote, so you do not get the right result. The second danger, which was raised by my noble friend Lord Howarth and to which we need an answer, is: who frames the question? In a referendum, you expect a simple yes or no response. Therefore, the power lies in who frames the question. It is instructive to consider the views coming back from Cornwall from referendums framed by district councils. If the county council had framed the question, I am sure that it could have got a totally different result.
	Wearing one of my various local government hats, I am chairman of Greater Manchester Authorities. We have been through an interesting exercise recently. We have been looking to see whether to make a bid for the transport innovation fund, which included raising a congestion charge for Manchester. That is not uncontroversial, I can assure your Lordships. We realised that if you ask people the simple question: "Do you want a congestion charge for Manchester?", the answer is no. I would say no. But when you frame the question as: "Do you want a £3 million injection into public transport and then you will have a congestion charge?", you get a much different result. Opinion surveys done through the local newspapers show that. So it is about how you frame the question.
	As usual, my noble friend Lord Graham had it right. If people in local government want to test public opinion, they should do so through the normal election process. If people do not want the structural changes proposed, I am sure that they will reward, or not, those politicians who put them forward.

Baroness Maddock: My Lords, I cannot let this debate go by without reminding the Government that, when we had a referendum for the north-east regional authority, there was another question on the paper. The question on the paper was about local government reorganisation in Northumberland and whether people wanted two unitary authorities or one if there was going to be a change. They said clearly on that occasion that they wanted two unitaries, not one.
	The process that we are discussing tonight—which is, as my noble friend Lady Scott said, unsatisfactory—has led in Northumberland to an invitation being given to Northumberland county council. The county proposed one unitary; the districts proposed two. Most ordinary citizens in Northumberland want there to be two. Most of the stakeholders represent areas very much bigger than Northumberland, so it is quite understandable that they would much prefer to deal with one authority than two. They said that they wanted one authority. There was a referendum, a government referendum, but it has been completely ignored.

Lord Howie of Troon: My Lords, in general terms, I am in favour of referenda in principle some of the time, but the statistics presented by the noble Baroness from the poll of whatever kind in Cornwall seem to be based on a turnout of 27 per cent. That is really quite pathetic and not a sensible basis for discussion. The noble Baroness may remember that in the late 1970s, there was a referendum on the question of devolution in Scotland. On that occasion, the rule was that in order to be effective, the majority in the poll had to be 40 per cent of the total electorate, leaving out those who did not vote. I am not sure whether the same rule applied in Wales. Perhaps the noble Lord opposite can tell us.
	If the Conservative proposal for referenda were to be carried—I am not going to vote for it, by the way—would they think of having some such barrier; namely, that the majority in support of the proposal would have to comprise at least 40 per cent of the total electorate?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, this has been an excellent debate. I am very pleased to have had the opportunity to listen to the combined power of not least my noble friends Lady Hollis, Lord Howarth, Lord "Ted of Ed"—as I may call him—Lord Howie and Lord Smith, who were extremely interesting. All sides of the argument against referenda were presented very cogently.
	Perhaps I may run through some of the contextual arguments attached to the amendment. Rightly, this has been a passionate debate because we have touched on some important issues on the relationship between local government and the electorate. I was struck by what the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said about her concern that people do not know or care. In a way, referenda do not address that issue for different reasons. That is precisely one of the reasons why we think, when we talk about Part 3, that visibility and accountability are best assisted by stronger and clearer leadership. In addition, because we have been talking about the process, it is worth putting on the record what we have done to make sure that the timetable has allowed a process to unfold which allows the engagement of local people in different ways.
	The invitation to local authorities was issued on 26 October 2006. This Bill was introduced on 12 December 2006. The proposals had to be submitted by 25 January 2007. The stakeholder consultation started on 27 March 2007 and ended on 22 June 2007. The "minded" decisions were made by the Secretary of State on 25 July. There has been a lot of time for democratically-elected accountable councils to prepare proposals and to submit them for consultation, which was shown in the response to the proposals. We are not engaged in a process just for the sake of it. As we have said earlier, this is very much about delivering better services and better accountability.
	Amendment No. 30 has the effect that the Secretary of State may not implement a proposal received as a result of an invitation or direction under Section 2, or an alternative proposal received from the Boundary Committee under Section 5 if those proposals have been rejected by a referendum. Noble Lords have spoken about the democratic process that this Bill has generated. It establishes a new framework for structural and boundary change. It is a devolutionary system and a process led by councils. In this approach to restructuring, we believed that it was right that local councils would be required to demonstrate local support for their proposals. The invitation document was very clear. It set out that one of the criteria to which any proposal must conform,
	"must be supported by a broad cross section of partners and stakeholders".
	It continued:
	"While no single council or body, or group of councils or bodies, will have a veto, it will be necessary for any proposal to have support from a range of key partners, stakeholders and service users/ citizens".
	For very good reason, we did not prescribe the way in which democratically-elected councils should engage with local people. The amendment would call for a prescription, an imposition. Local authorities have demonstrated that their criterion was satisfied as they saw fit. In some places, it was through citizens' juries, user panels, opinion polls or local referendums. For example, in Exeter, which we have been talking about, an Ipsos MORI poll surveyed more than 1,000 residents. Ipswich and Shropshire County Council also commissioned Ipsos MORI polls of more than 1,000 residents.
	In Cornwall, district results were as the noble Lord described. But he did not tell the House that the county council commissioned a properly sampled poll, which found that 68 per cent of people would support a unitary authority if it provided savings, which was one of our criteria. As my noble friend Lord Smith said, it depends on who asks the question and how the question is asked. Many examples have been given. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, referred to how that influences the outcomes.
	We do not believe that it is appropriate to impose a referendum. On the point that a referendum by definition excludes some stakeholders' interests, that is precisely the reason why the second stage of our engagement was with local stakeholders. We carried out a 12-week consultation on the 16 bids that were successful in phase 1. It was open to anyone to make representations. We wanted to ensure that the key stakeholders whose views we sought were the ones able to provide the evidence to show that the proposals met the criteria of affordability, strategic leadership, neighbourhood engagement and value-for-money services. This was how to get the sense of the local area and place which meant that it was properly viable and deliverable.
	The amendment would also require that a referendum be carried out on an alternative proposal as made to the Secretary of State by the Boundary Committee. I have already set out why that is not necessary. Additionally, a referendum in such circumstances would ask a local electorate to arbitrate between the views of its council and the views of the independent expert committee, which is hardly a sensible way forward.
	I conclude by addressing the questions raised on the referendum itself. We believe that imposing referendums would be unnecessary. Noble Lords have explained eloquently why a referendum is not appropriate. They have explained in different ways why this process, this poll/referendum, would not enable an outcome that really addresses the issues that need to be addressed. Let us imagine a process where one collects opinion, but does not end up knowing whether it is affordable, workable, manageable and, ultimately, democratic. A referendum will not give a way of resolving differences. Only consensus and working through democratic processes will give that sort of result, which is precisely what we need in a situation where local authorities are being required to think so strategically and boldly about their future. That is the result we need to be able to guarantee and noble Lords have explained that that is the case.
	It is crucial that any decision for structural change must be a decision for Parliament, which of course is provided for. All the implementation orders for structural change are subject to affirmative resolution. They will have to be debated and voted on in this House and in another place. I am very grateful for the opportunity to have had a debate on something so important. I hope that the noble Lord is as convinced as he should be about the need to withdraw his amendment.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, this noble Baroness rises to respond to the debate. I realise that it is confusing. Two noble Baronesses are sitting on the Government Benches, and I have a split force on this side. I am very grateful to all those who have taken part in the debate, but I am completely baffled by their contributions. The suggestion is that there should be a referendum on the final proposal. No one could imagine that anyone would put forward a proposal for unitary government without having undertaken all the consultations which have been so lavishly expanded on by speakers on the other side. What we are saying is that when the final proposal has been drawn up, when everyone is satisfied that that is what it should be, the last word on who would be involved in the change to a unitary system should come from the electorate.
	I find the opposition to this very strange. The last change proposed for the reorganisation of local government was the establishment of the regions. What happened there? We had a referendum which demonstrated fully and clearly that the electorate thought it was a rotten idea and so eventually it did not come about. But the electorate was given the opportunity to comment on the proposal. As the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, said, although the Government did not necessarily get their wish, it was put to the electorate. The Local Government Act 2003 specifically enables local authorities to hold referendums, so I do not see why this comes as a shock to those who are trying to pull it down. As well as businesses, stakeholders, PCTs and others, the people who are affected by reorganisation and restructuring are those who live within the proposed area. They are the electorate. If we believe in democracy, and we have been told that this Bill is all about bringing things down to the local level, how can the decision be made to introduce a new structure of local government without asking the electorate about it? It does not even stack up with the Government's own thoughts on regional government, where it was entirely a different matter.
	The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, has made many contributions. This is not a wheeze or a smokescreen, and I have tried to give the reasons why it is not. Referendums were not put forward initially by the Conservative Party, but they have been proposed by this Government for local government. It therefore seems that this is a perfectly obvious and sensible proposal, particularly on such extremely controversial matters which are not being welcomed by those who are purported as having to welcome them. It is time that they were given an opportunity to express their view. It may be that the House is not with me on this, but nonetheless I wish to test its opinion.

On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 30) shall be agreed to?
	Their Lordships divided: Contents, 35; Not-Contents, 155.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, I beg to move that consideration on report be now adjourned. In moving the Motion I suggest that the Report stage begin again not before 8.42 pm.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

Social Workers

The Earl of Listowel: asked Her Majesty's Government what progress they have made towards the introduction of an allocated mentor and protected time for all newly qualified social workers.
	My Lords, perhaps I may begin by saying how very grateful I am to those of your Lordships who have chosen to speak in this debate. The Government's intentions and actions towards social work are encouraging and I look forward to the noble Baroness's announcement of the spending plans in this area. However, there is a huge piece of work to be done if social workers are to finally receive the solid professional framework they have so long lacked. It will indeed require strong and consistent pressure from your Lordships' House if this is to be achieved. I also thank my fellow trustees at the Michael Sieff Foundation and Dr Andrea Warman of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering for their advice and encouragement.
	This debate on new social workers is particularly necessary because of Her Majesty's Government's welcome success in recruiting new candidates to the profession. Especially, young people are now coming forward to take the course for the new degree that superseded the two-year diploma. For instance, this summer I heard from an 18 year-old care leaver attending the Associate Parliamentary Group for Children and Young People In and Leaving Care, chaired by David Kidney MP, that she was about to read social work at university.
	The Government have recognised that employers have found that the degree is not sufficient to entirely equip students for practice. It is vital therefore that they immediately implement their proposal for newly qualified social work status—a proposal akin to the very successful and established newly qualified teacher status—thereby guaranteeing new graduates reduced caseloads and increased supervision. Young people, such as that care leaver, put their faith in us to provide the necessary professional framework when they choose their course. We must not betray them. The children and adults who depend on them need us to retain them. Those children and adults also need us to ensure that their social workers' practice is safe.
	In the short time available I shall seek to consider the achievements made by the Government, to look at areas of disappointment, and then ask the Government the timescale for implementation of their plans.
	However, I should first like to put this matter into context. Over decades, social work has been in decline. The fundamental resource for good social work—good supervision entailing a space for reflection on practice and firm management of professional conduct—has withered under the financial and political pressure on social work. Reflection has suffered most. It is crucial in this profession, where practitioners make relationships with, for example, schizophrenics, alcoholics and violent men and women who can seek to harm their partners and their children, that practitioners can have regular, private discussions with their line manager, an experienced supervisor who is trained to give effective supervision. It makes me sick to my stomach to think how many practitioners lack this sine qua non. On looking at two social work text books from 2006, I find there is no index entry for supervision in either work and no comment on the subject in the text. Without effective supervision, many social workers are working blind.
	When guardians ad litem—advocates for children in public law cases—felt under threat seven years ago, we learnt that these practitioners, all social workers by background, were refugees from field social work. They wanted to stay in practice with vulnerable children but often felt that this was impossible in sometimes dysfunctional local authorities and chose therefore to work in the courts. The 2004 Local Authority Social Care Workforce Survey found vacancy rates in children's field social workers at 11.4 per cent and turnover rates at about 10.6 per cent, the first figure being about five times more than that of nurses, teachers or police officers. There was about a 20 per cent vacancy rate in London and a very heavy dependency on expensive temporary staff.
	My noble friend Lord Laming, in his forensic examination of the death of Victoria Climbié, expressed dismay that Mrs Arthurworrey, one of the principal social workers involved, was not receiving adequate supervision and had a caseload of 19 when the local authority's own guidance stipulated a maximum of 12. Visiting a day centre for disabled young people in Hammersmith a little time ago, I was told that the turnover of social workers frustrated the families' attempts to ensure that their children made a successful transition to adulthood. The advocate was not there for them. A string of different social workers could not be the effective advocates that these young people needed to secure services. Young carers speak of social workers flitting through their lives. Often young people attending the Associate Parliamentary Group for Children and Young People In and Leaving Care tell us how pained they are by their changes of social worker. One young man spoke of having five in less than two years.
	So it is vital to retain these new social workers if social work is to be transformed into the effective, respected and professional institution it can be. Of course there are many excellent practitioners currently who do stay in post—children report this, too—but they are too often acting and working against the grain.
	The Government have made welcome efforts to address the retention and recruitment of social workers through the registration of social workers; the three-year degree course, already mentioned, replacing the two year diploma and very significant increases in funding for social care training. Most welcome was the Options for Excellence White Paper of October 2006, the Government's strategy for the social care workforce. An excellent document drawing on the expertise of all those involved with social work, including service users, it first introduced the option of newly qualified social work status and provided a vision of a professional, reflective service constituted of learning organisations. Very sadly, its proposals were given no clear funding commitment by the Government at the time, much to the disappointment of those who contributed to it. I therefore look forward very much to learning the results of the Comprehensive Spending Review or other new thoughts on funding from the noble Baroness.
	There have also been welcome Green and White Papers on children in public care, which have made it clear how frustrated social workers have been at not being able to spend time with their children and stick with them. The Care Matters White Paper has promised new measures of support for children and family social workers. Has similar progress towards the newly qualified social worker status been made for those social workers not practising with children?
	I welcome the recognition by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, in his letter of 16 February 2007, that:
	"Many newly qualified social workers are thrown in the deep end with difficult cases right from the start of their employment, and where this happens the rate of burnout can be high".
	There is a great deal to welcome from the Government. However, when they first proposed newly qualified social worker status 12 months ago, Ian Johnston, the chief executive of the British Association of Social Work, said:
	"We believe that Newly Qualified Social Work Status should be introduced immediately. The first new graduates entering work have now completed the social work degree. They should not have to wait to receive good supervision and limited workloads—we cannot afford to lose them from the workforce and waste the money already invested in them through the new degree programmes. This is urgent. They need specific support".
	A year has passed. Will the Minister reassure us that real protections will be put in place for all new social workers? Will the minimum standards insist that new social workers receive at least one hour of one-to-one supervision with their line manager once a week? When will that, and guidance on the maximum size of workloads, be introduced? When will the retraining of line managers and senior managers take place so that they are competent to give good supervision?
	I welcome the refreshment of the children's workforce strategy, which is currently being undertaken. Does the Minister recognise the huge cultural shift that will have to take place if the Government's ambitions for children are to be attained? What progress has the new adult social care workforce strategy board made in implementing the Options for Excellence proposals?
	Failure might mean that the 18 year-old care leaver I began with found herself overwhelmed. At the very worst, her decisions might lead to the death of a child. She might then be held up for vilification by the media, but we would know that it was we who failed that child and that brave woman by not providing the professional framework in which she could succeed. More generally, failure implies the continued haemorrhaging of social workers. No gradual accretion of experience on the front line and in management will be possible, but only that experience can eventually provide the expert, compassionate and professional institution that our vulnerable need.
	I welcome the positive steps the Government are taking. A long journey has to be made. We have let down our social workers for too many years, and we must not miss this chance.

Baroness Howarth of Breckland: My Lords, I welcome this debate initiated by the noble Earl, who has been the champion of children in care for many years and now adds social workers to the list of those to whom he is prepared to give a voice. I should declare my interests, as I have worked as a social worker or in jobs related to social care all my life, including local government, the voluntary sector and regulation. At the moment I am the chair of Grooms Shaftesbury, working with disabled people, many in residential care, and I am deputy chair of CAFCASS, the largest single employer of social workers in the country. I have the privilege of continuing to see the practice of social workers at first hand.
	A golden thread is woven through social work. Despite huge changes in structures and frameworks through new legislation and protocols, the principles of good social work practice remain. The way we do it will change with new knowledge and experience, but much is constant: the need for clear, evidentially based assessment, especially around the safety of children and vulnerable adults; the use of relationships in helping people to resolve complex problems and change behaviour; the management of authority and the capacity to set boundaries; and maybe the ability to love the unlovable and to stick with people when everything seems impossible in their lives—principles that young social workers will need to implement from the very first day in their job. There has always been the suggestion that you should begin by giving a social worker the least complex cases, but you never know until you cross the threshold what is contained in the family's dynamic.
	I believe that the job is more complex today than it has ever been, yet we give less time for reflection and development to those to whom we have consigned these tasks on behalf of our society. When I was a young social worker, I could expect supervision from my team leader once a week until my competencies were secure and then on a regular basis to ensure clear thinking and objectivity. It was combined with group learning, sharing experiences that moved the learning curve up speedily, and it had the requirement for continuous learning and improvement. My manager had skills to pass on in both casework and case management. Sadly, we have been through an era where case management lost the dynamic element of understanding that is essential in the helping process. I hope that some of these skills are being revived, relearnt and passed on.
	To illustrate the complexities that social workers face today and that were barely understood when I was a social worker on the ground, I want to give two different examples. The first comes from work that we are undertaking in CAFCASS to help our staff to understand and work with diversity. If there were time I would give your Lordships the statistics that we have on the highly complex groups of racial mix that we have to work with in CAFCASS, which means that our staff must understand diversity of different cultures and conditions. The patterns of family life throughout England are changing, with divorce, reconstituted families, dual-culture marriages and children and, as Sherry Malik, one of the directors of CAFCASS, put it in a recent speech, the fact that,
	"the values and beliefs that people have are shaped by personal and unique circumstances which cannot be stereotyped".
	To work in this environment demands that CAFCASS is a learning organisation. We must therefore find ways of helping our staff to think through not only the technical issues before the court, but also the services that are meaningful and unique to the set of circumstances of each child and family involved. That takes time, and the better we work, the longer it takes.
	My second example is from the world of adult disability, where increasingly the care given to those who are severely disabled or have complex learning difficulties, but nevertheless wish to live full lives, is bounded by risk assessment. Of course staff must balance risk with public scrutiny, but the smallest mistake that they make without proper consultation can lead to their total vilification.
	Young social workers are more responsible than ever for the rationing of resources, need more than ever to understand increasingly complex situations and find themselves more than ever in the front line and accountable for their work. They deserve the support and pay that reflects that. As we have achieved time for development and decent salaries for teachers, is it not time that we did the same for our social workers? They carry the baton for the deprived and the sick, for those in trouble and in danger, for the abused and the abuser, on behalf of all of us. The least we can do is to give them support and a decent place and status in our society in return.

Lord Low of Dalston: My Lords, one of the things that has most impressed me since I entered the House is the commitment of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, to issues of social welfare in this country; that is, to the welfare of its citizens, the welfare of social workers, who constitute such an important force for the alleviation of social problems, and the welfare of the social work profession, which is the best guarantee of standards in social work and of social workers being properly equipped with the skills that they need to do their job. The noble Earl not only evinces a strong commitment but is tenacious in following it up; hence this short debate tonight, which I congratulate him on securing.
	In a short debate such as this, it is possible to make only a few points—I shall make four. First, expenditure on personal social services has increased substantially in recent years, by 10 per cent in real terms between 2003-04 and 2005-06. That is impressive by any standards and the Government deserve credit for it. Secondly, however, it is still not enough. Despite the Government's best efforts, provision is falling further behind need on account of demographic and other factors, and the system is slipping deeper into crisis. There is a disconnection between the official picture presented in government rhetoric and what happens on the ground. In March 2006, the Local Government Association reported that seven out of 10 people receive social care only if their needs are substantial or critical. Eighty per cent of councils plan to tighten their criteria still further. That has forced many disabled and elderly people back on their own resources, leaving some to rely on family or friends for essentials and others simply to go without. We can see the results daily on the streets of our inner-city areas. The Comprehensive Spending Review must recognise that growth in spending on social care is being dwarfed by the growing needs of our ageing population.
	Thirdly, how does the current situation impact on hard-pressed social workers, particularly new entrants to the profession? In a survey carried out a few years ago, social workers uniformly reported excessive case loads, acute stress and a feeling that new staff were thrown in at the deep end. It is little wonder that newly qualified social workers feel thrown in at the deep end, because there is no shallow end. Support for newly qualified social workers, which the noble Earl seeks, could do much to ease what must be one of the most difficult baptisms of fire for any professional. In such a pressured environment, new staff need to be given time to find their feet, which could not only help mistakes to be avoided—we all know what that can mean—but ensure that we improve retention rates, which, as we have heard, are an abiding problem for the social care workforce.
	Fourthly, the suggestion in the Care Matters White Paper of a year-long qualification period for new social workers who work with children is welcome. I hope that the Department of Health will move in the same direction for those who work with adults. The first-12-weeks approach to the common induction standards for adult social workers is the minimum required for safety rather than a fully developed effort to help new staff to flourish. I hope that the Minister will confirm that the Government see the common induction standards as a first step.

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for initiating this important debate and acknowledge his commitment to driving up standards in the social work profession and increasing respect for it. I declare an interest as a member of the Unison parliamentary group—a union that represents the individual and collective interests of some 40,000 social workers.
	If the die had been thrown differently, I would not be here today, but would instead have been pursuing my original ambition to be a social worker. Unfortunately, when I graduated in 1976, cuts in the public sector by the then Labour Government meant that no new recruitment was taking place and I was forced to find alternative employment. Thankfully, as a result of the superb stewardship of the economy by our current Prime Minister, we have now been able to invest in public sector jobs rather than implement draconian cuts. That should make possible the radical reforms necessary to boost the morale of the profession and attract a wave of new recruits to an increasingly beleaguered service.
	That the social work profession is not in a greater crisis today is because we collectively exploit the commitment and dedication of existing social workers, who are struggling to cope with increasingly complex case loads in departments that are perennially understaffed. In children's services, for example, 12 per cent of vacancies are unfilled and the rate of annual staff turnover is 11 per cent. As a result, those who remain face impossible workloads, and levels of stress and burn-out escalate. We have to intervene to break that cycle. That is why the proposal in Options for Excellence to guarantee newly qualified social workers a reduced case load, structured additional supervision and mentors could make a great difference. Investment at an early stage of career development is vital to protect new recruits from destructive early experiences, while protecting our original investment in their initial qualifications. Parallel with this policy is a need to broaden our recruitment base by investing in new routes into social work; for example, other categories of social care staff could be encouraged to enrol on part-time, work-based social work courses such as that being pioneered by Unison and the Open University.
	The White Paper's proposals include many welcome steps towards raising the status of the profession and beginning to tackle recruitment problems. However, there are a couple of developments about which I shall raise a note of concern. First, I fear that the proposal to pilot independent social work practices for children's services could prove an expensive distraction and fragment rather than streamline provision. I hope that the Government will think again about it.
	Secondly, the split in policy responsibilities for social work between DCSF and the Department of Health is fuelling speculation that a split between children's and adults' social work is being considered. Such a move would be damaging to the service. The current structures enable social workers to take a holistic approach, focusing on the needs of the family as a whole. Many social workers strengthen their experience by moving between child and adult provision during their career. Splitting the service would mean the loss of a broader and more informed perspective. I hope that the Minister will reassure me that it is not being seriously considered.
	If we share a determination to transform and inspire the social work profession, we need to address core management and employment issues. For example, we need a real commitment to rooting out the blame culture that is targeted at social workers. We need proper systems of case-load management to banish impossible case loads, tackle high levels of unpaid overtime and provide a better work/life balance. We need sustainable pay structures to prevent social workers from remaining one of the lowest-paid graduate professions and to end employers' reliance on expensive agency staff. We also need career routes and pay progression that reward front-line staff. Those issues are fundamental in addressing the morale of the profession and crucial to attracting the next generation into the sector. I look forward to the remainder of the debate and hope to hear some reassurance from the Minister that those issues are being addressed.

Lord Northbourne: My Lords, I support the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, in his important objective of pressing the Government to do more to support new, young and inexperienced care workers. Child and family social workers have one of the most difficult as well as most important roles in our society. When a child is taken into the care of the state, their social worker often becomes the most important person in their lives. In explaining why, I shall quote from a report about social workers from July of last year. Roger Morgan, the children's rights director, reported on the views of children about their care workers. In his conclusion, he quoted three things that children said—although I shall quote only two of them. He wrote:
	"One care leaver told us their view of social workers, looking back on their time in care: 'With children in care, they need to always know they have someone they can turn to and talk to. I never felt that. I ended up in and out of prison and felt like I had no support. The longest I had a social worker was 3 months, then from there I've had 14 different social workers. It's hard because you get to know and trust one and it leaves".
	Another young person who is still in care said:
	"It's not rocket science! Kids just want to be wanted because when you are in care you feel like no one wants you. You just want people to listen, understand and be there on a regular basis so you know that you've always got someone to hang on to. It's not too much to ask!"
	To develop their full potential, all children need the security and encouragement of long-term emotional attachment to at least one or preferably two or more responsible adults. In many cases a child social worker has to pick up some measure of responsibility for this role when the parents fail. Without early secure attachment, most children will suffer emotionally and in terms of lack of social skills as they grow up. It is not sensible or fair to expect a newly fledged social worker to do their job effectively without at the beginning support and guidance. It has been incredibly unwise of local authorities over the years, and of successive Governments, to starve social services of the resources that they have needed to recruit, train and support the staff that they need to do the job properly. There have been many undesirable outcomes, of which the most obvious are the poor socialisation and anti-social behaviour of teenagers, the inability of young people to engage with school, leading to disruption, exclusion and poor employment prospects, and, of course, our prisons stuffed full of care leavers.
	I hope that the Minister will tell the House this evening that she has been able to squeeze out of the Treasury the necessary funding to ensure that all new and inexperienced social workers can be allocated manageable case loads and can have the mentoring support that they need until they gain experience. It is we and not the children themselves who have created a society in which so many children do not have a happy, secure or functional family. The very least that we can do—and I believe that we have an absolute moral responsibility—is to ensure that public services that pick up the pieces for children in care are properly funded, staffed, trained and led.

Baroness Barker: My Lords, it is always a privilege to take part in a debate initiated by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. The way in which he returns time and again to the details of practice particularly for children's social work is truly admirable. I congratulate him, too, on his timing of the debate. We are in the run-up to the CSR announcement, and it is important to take the opportunity to highlight the need for a well-trained workforce with status and clarity about its distinctive role within the wider field of health and social care.
	Some 3.4 million people are employed in social care, working in more than 14,000 establishments. Of those, many are very small; more than 56 per cent of them employ fewer than 11 people and most employ fewer than 60 people. According to the Department for Work and Pensions and the Centre for Research into the Older Workforce, employees in social care have an older profile than other sectors. A very high proportion of people work part time and a high proportion are female or from BME communities. It is important that we consider such factors when we come to the more technical point on which the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, wanted to focus. We know that within social care there are huge labour shortages, with more than 25 per cent of employers reporting vacancies. Those are most acute within personal social services.
	In October 2006, Niall Dickson of the King's Fund, writing on the future of social care, reported that there were three times the vacancy rates in social care that there were in other industries. Growing demands from children and young adults with very high levels of need and older people living with long-term conditions mean that there will be a growing demand on those staff. By 2014, it is estimated that there will be a need for an additional 1.6 million people to deal with care needs. However, by the end of this year, local authorities will have delivered £525 million of Gershon savings from social care, and there is a fragmentation of employment even further in social care. The days of large local authority social work departments are coming to an end, a consequence of which is that structured training programmes for large cohorts of staff is under threat. I say this as someone with experience of working with older people. Contracting and outsourcing of services—domiciliary care, for example—do not set a good precedent for investment in training in the social care workforce. That is the background against which the CSR report is to come out.
	The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, talked in great detail about how, following the report on Options for Excellence, the newly qualified social worker qualification had come into being. I take the opportunity to ask the Minister two questions related to that. One is a key question. Do the Government believe that there is a case for linking the NQSW to the consolidation module within the post-qualification framework? Would newly qualified social workers be less likely to be subjected to double assessment, meaning less bureaucracy, if there was a link between the two systems for post-qualification? If the Minister agrees, do the Government agree that having that link would enable social workers to have the requisite knowledge and skills for working in difficult and complex settings such as with children and young people?
	Secondly, do the Government agree that NQSW status should apply to all social workers in all settings, including criminal justice and health? If that status were to become recognised across all social work, not just children's work, it would be a more efficient way in which to make sure that education and registration could be more efficiently managed, for example by the General Social Care Council.
	It is clear that in future there will need to be a workforce which is well trained and competent. There will be fewer older, more experienced social workers to pass on their knowledge to younger people entering the profession. If we are to have the social care system that we want, we need to invest, and make sure that the employers continue to invest in training. I look forward to hearing the answers to the noble Earl's penetrating questions.

Earl Howe: My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has captured within the wording of his brief Question three issues that are absolutely central to any social work service worthy of the name. Those three issues are: adequate recruitment; appropriate training; and the concept of professionalism, which, as he indicated, is a sine qua non of modern social work and embraces a very wide as well as complex range of skills.
	I take this opportunity to congratulate the noble Earl not just on his Question but on his consistent championing of social work and social workers over the years, especially child social work, and on the first-hand knowledge that he always brings to our debates. This evening has been no exception. I hope that the Minister will listen very carefully to the views that he has put forward.
	If you talk to any of the professional or voluntary bodies who are close to the delivery of social work, you will hear a pretty consistent story from them all. The story is of a workforce that, despite the welcome introduction of degree-level qualifications, is often struggling under a caseload that it cannot cope with properly. It is a story of well-motivated men and women who are nevertheless burdened by too much administration as compared with field work; and who feel pulled in too many directions because there are not enough people on the ground to deliver the service. The Government are to be congratulated on having recognised the need for investing in social work training and on the quality agenda which they introduced in the Care Standards Act 2000. Those were essential steps in any move to rid social work of the negative perceptions of it that persist among the general public who have little appreciation of quite how difficult a job it is. To my mind, being a children's social worker, whether in the field of family support or child protection, is an extremely difficult job, yet society as a whole does not value the profession nearly as much as it should.
	Public attitudes as much as anything else adversely affect the recruitment and retention of social workers. Until those attitudes change I am afraid that the profession is going to struggle. The public and the media have an unwelcome habit of focusing on the occasional failures of social work practice and ignoring its benefits and achievements, of which there are, of course, many. There emerges from this a culture of blame and pointing the finger instead of a realisation that the problems with which social workers have to deal are both hugely complicated and ones which society has itself created in the first place. Poor parenting, a lack of understanding about child development, the effects of poverty and drug misuse—all these societal failings contribute to children being maltreated or neglected and all in their different ways have to form part of a social worker's armoury of knowledge and experience. What is more, that knowledge and experience have to sit alongside a particularly important personal quality, which is the ability to communicate with adults and children of every kind.
	That is a formidable skill-set; and it is perhaps no wonder that many people are calling for degree courses in social work to be extended from three years to four. It explains why there is such widespread support for the concept of newly qualified social worker status and it is also why mentoring and protected time are so important. As the noble Earl indicated, that status would mean that newly qualified social workers would receive a level of support similar to that of newly qualified teachers.
	The noble Earl is right—supervision of social work is essential at every level but never more so than for the newly qualified social worker who depends on experienced and unhurried guidance in those early months. What I hear from a number of sources, including bodies such as the NSPCC, is that in a stretched and understaffed department social work supervision is being eroded. Supervision used to mean, and should mean, an in-depth discussion of individual cases so as to get to the heart of sometimes tricky and sensitive situations and work out the way forward. What we are seeing more and more is an emphasis on meeting targets, which certainly entails supervision, but supervision of a very much lower order. Again, that is a worry.
	If you do not put good support systems in place for new trainees, you get not just poor practice but demoralisation, burn-out and people leaving the profession because of bad early experiences. Indeed, a high turnover of staff at a more senior level fuels exactly the same thing lower down. What is the timetable for implementing the proposals in the Options for Excellence report? The noble Earl has got to the heart of a very important set of issues. I congratulate him warmly on that and, like him, I look forward to the Minister's response.

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for providing us with an opportunity to discuss the important issues before us this evening. I pay tribute to his tenacity, his expertise and the way in which he keeps social work—especially the invaluable social care workforce—in the spotlight in the House of Lords.
	This Government have set out a clear vision for social care, where people of all ages receive support to promote recovery, independence, inclusion, health and well-being; a social care system where people have the opportunity to exercise choice and control, developing their own solutions, and support to shape their lives through high-quality services. We can only achieve that through a skilled and accountable workforce that is valued by those who use its services, their carers and the wider community. In a social care setting, a well-motivated workforce, suitably trained and developed, confident in its own abilities, with the tools it needs to do its job, will mean better and improving standards of care, and there will be a direct impact on the services provided.
	With an increasing number of people using direct payments and individual budgets to fund their care, there are many changes in the way in which services are delivered, and the number of employers has increased exponentially as people exercise more choice and control. The noble Baroness, Lady Barker, was right to point out that there is a growing and more diverse demand as a result of demographic change. Such a dynamic and innovative provider service needs a suitably skilled workforce that can take on new roles and provide care in different ways, moving freely within and across organisations, across social care and local government, traditional primary and secondary healthcare boundaries and the independent and third sector.
	Following the introduction of the three-year degree level qualification in social work, in September 2006, 1,333 students became the first graduate social workers. I was very pleased to hear the noble Earl say that there are enthusiastic young people who really want to follow that course. In 2007-08, the Government will issue £87 million to support social work students and the social work degree.
	It is crucial that we continue to build on the investment that goes into training once students have qualified and have begun their professional lives. The General Social Care Council has developed a new framework for post-qualifying social work education. From this month, universities are offering specialist courses in working with adults, children and families, mental health, leadership and management and practice education. Post-qualifying education will enable social workers to continue their learning and development in their chosen specialist area. Social workers need to make sure that their skills are extended and updated throughout their working lives. A newly qualified social worker year would provide a very positive start. It would ease the baptism of fire mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Low.
	There are so many expectations of these newly qualified professionals from those who receive services from them. The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth of Breckland, presented us with a vivid picture of the challenges and the complexity that they face these days. It is well known that social workers suffer from burnout and that social work suffers from a very high vacancy and turnover rate. To address those issues, we need a whole-system approach to social work, which includes support to newly qualified staff and career structures that support experienced staff to remain in practice and act as mentors for the rest of the workforce. Support to leaders and managers to enable them to manage the workforce creatively is crucial. The principle of proper induction for new staff is a matter of good management practice.
	As the noble Earl, Lord Howe, said, a lack of support leads to demoralisation of the workforce. People who are supported and directed, who know the systems, processes and expectations of them and who are supported by managers in a real and practical sense are more likely to be more effective much more quickly than those who are not. They are also more likely to develop their full potential. It is also of benefit to employers to support effective development.
	There is innovative work taking place throughout the country to drive forward the Options for Excellence proposals. Skills for Care, sponsored by the Department of Health, is undertaking employer-led innovation projects to develop new ways of delivering and evaluating induction and training programmes for newly qualified social workers. Newly qualified social workers have told us that they would benefit from more time to shadow and buddy experienced colleagues. Skills for Care is working with employers to develop a package to support newly qualified social workers, in particular mentoring, supervision, peer support and a range of professional development opportunities. Newly qualified staff are working with experienced practitioners to evaluate different methods to consolidate their degree training post-qualification.
	To ensure that work on the ground is in line with the Government's overall vision for social care, the Department of Health has established an adult's social care workforce strategy board. Its purpose is to ensure the proposals set out in Options for Excellence are prioritised and that priority proposals are implemented effectively, ensuring that stakeholders work together to get best value from the resources available.
	The proposal to develop a newly qualified social worker status—one of the longer term proposals from Options for Excellence—was primarily aimed at improving retention and workforce quality. Many new social workers have a challenging remit with a high number of difficult cases right from the start. Where this happens, the rate of burn-out can be high. Such a status would enable new social workers to build on their initial training, with strengths and development needs being identified, setting the pace and direction for their continuing professional development and engaging with the post-qualifying framework. Each newly qualified professional would have an allocated adviser to support their induction and have some protected time in their first year—perhaps 10 per cent.
	I am pleased to say that the Department for Children, Schools and Families has begun a programme of work to develop proposals to introduce a newly qualified social worker—NQSW—status from 2008-09 for all new children's social workers in their first year of practice following successful completion of their initial training. The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, will be glad to hear that £21 million per year has been allocated over the next three years. DCSF is looking to equip supervisors, particularly those who are newly appointed with the skills that they need to support newly qualified social workers. We are looking not only at working with the newly trained young people but at equipping their mentors.
	DCSF has engaged with a number of local authorities and front-line workers who have raised concerns about the capacity and training for social workers and offered strong support for the development of an NQSW to help address these issues and problems relating to stress, burnout and caseload management. We are currently learning from other professions, notably teaching, where a newly qualified teacher status was introduced to facilitate better quality teaching and improve outcomes for children in schools. We are assessing the options for implementation to see if we can learn and draw on the success of the NQT status in teaching.
	DCSF is working with stakeholders and delivery partners to consider how the scheme should be implemented. The department intends to publish more detailed proposals in the children's workforce action plan later this year or early in the new year and aims to pilot the NQSW scheme from next year. That will run for three years and, depending on its evaluation, a roll-out will take place.
	Officials in the Department of Health are working closely with DCSF in learning from the preliminary work being taken forward in children's services to ensure that the same good practice and innovation can be taken forward in adults' services at an appropriate point, without unnecessary duplication of work across departments. Timing in relation to adults' services will depend on the results of tomorrow's CSR, but I assure noble Lords that we want to roll out the scheme to adults' services and we want the NQSW to be applicable to all newly qualified social workers. We are still looking at the options and are consulting with stakeholders. In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, we are still considering whether there should be a link between the NQSW and the consolidation modules of the post-qualifying framework for social work education. I undertake to keep the noble Baroness informed.
	I wish to highlight the public perception and image of social care, making it a career valued by society as a whole—an issue raised by the noble Earl. This is one of the best ways of attracting and retaining high-quality staff and will give people a sense of pride in their work and careers. In response to Dame Denise Platt's review of social care, Ivan Lewis announced in April a five-point plan to put excellence at the heart of the Government's vision for 21st century social care.
	The centrepiece of the package will be a skills academy focused on developing world-class leadership and commissioning in the public, private and voluntary sectors. Clearly, this will be an important factor for the workforce and the newly qualified social worker proposals that we have discussed this evening. We are delighted that Chris Humphries, director general of City and Guilds, has agreed to chair the steering group to establish the academy. The steering group has now met with representatives throughout the sector and has agreed a vision for the academy and a work programme.
	The five-point plan will complement and drive forward some of the suggestions from Options for Excellence, ensuring that a highly skilled, developed and supported social care workforce is at the centre of reforming social care for the 21st century.
	My noble friend Lady Jones asked about rumours of a split in training for children and adult social work. We are not proposing to create separate social work degrees for children and adults and we want to maintain coherence between children and adult services. Links between the two services are already strong through measures such as placement opportunities, induction, continuing professional development and common work-based training opportunities as well as many other arrangements within individual organisations.
	As many noble Lords have stated this evening, great progress has been made and money has been invested, but there is still a huge amount to do, especially as demands on the services are increasing day by day. Both Options for Excellence and the five-point plan demonstrate that excellence really is at the heart of our vision for social care and for a 2020 workforce, but clearly there is a vital role for stakeholders. The Government, employers, unions, people who use services, professional bodies and staff all need to play their part in promoting and selling a positive image of the sector and its huge contribution to the well-being of our citizens and communities. The workforce strategy is at the forefront of what we do and support for newly qualified professionals at the outset of their career is a key element of the strategy, as is continuing professional development and good human resource management practice.
	I end by thanking social workers and social care workers for the extraordinary work that they do every day. As Dame Denise Platt highlighted in her review this year, and as we have highlighted this evening, for the most part that extraordinary and valuable work is invisible. I hope that this evening's debate will help bring it visibility and I assure social workers them that their work is greatly valued by this House.

Baroness Crawley: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn until 8.42 pm.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
	[The Sitting was suspended from 8.37 to 8.42pm.]

Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

Consideration of amendments on Report resumed.
	Clause 7 [Implementation of proposals by order]:
	[Amendments Nos. 30A and 30B not moved.]

Baroness Fookes: My Lords, there is a misprint in Amendment No. 30C: "who" should read "which".

[Amendments Nos. 30C and 30D not moved.]

Baroness Andrews: moved Amendments Nos. 31 and 32:
	Clause 7, page 5, line 40, after "(1)(a)" insert "(or deciding not to)"
	Clause 7, page 5, line 41, at end insert—
	"(6) In any case where he has received an alternative proposal from the Boundary Committee under section 5, the Secretary of State may request the Boundary Committee to provide him with information or advice on any matter relating to the proposal.
	(7) Where they receive such a request the Boundary Committee may provide the information or advice requested."
	On Question, amendments agreed to.
	[Amendment No. 33 not moved.]
	Clause 8 [Review by Boundary Committee of local government areas]:

Baroness Andrews: moved Amendments Nos. 34 and 35:
	Clause 8, page 6, line 27, leave out "not currently a local government area" and insert "currently outside all local government areas"
	Clause 8, page 6, line 28, at end insert—
	"(e) a change whose effect would be that England (excluding the Isles of Scilly, the City of London, the Inner Temple and the Middle Temple) is no longer divided into areas each of which is—(i) a county divided into districts, or comprising one district; or(ii) a London borough."
	On Question, amendments agreed to.
	Clause 10 [Implementation of recommendations by order]:

Baroness Andrews: moved Amendment No. 36:
	Clause 10, page 7, line 44, leave out "additional information or advice" and insert "information or advice on any matter relating to the recommendation"
	On Question, amendment agreed to.
	Clause 11 [Implementation orders: provision that may be included]:

Baroness Andrews: moved Amendments Nos. 37 and 38:
	Clause 11, page 8, line 6, leave out from "purpose" to "for" in line 7 and insert "of implementing a proposal or recommendation or in connection with the implementation of a proposal or recommendation,"
	Clause 11, page 8, line 11, at end insert "and "implementation" is to be read accordingly"
	On Question, amendments agreed to.

Lord Dixon-Smith: moved Amendment No. 39:
	Clause 11, page 8, line 28, leave out paragraph (d)

Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, I return to these amendments as a result of debate in Committee and following a review of what the Minister had to say in Hansard. The Minister said that due to the fact that an electoral review of any new area created would take the Electoral Commission 12 to 24 months to implement, it was necessary for the Secretary of State to have power to determine—along with all the other aspects of local government which she will be able to decide—the electoral arrangements for an area. The noble Baroness did not inform the House of the view of the Electoral Commission on this matter, but it would be very interesting to hear that. I would be most grateful to her if she could let us know whether the Electoral Commission has any comments.
	The Minister also did not make it clear, even if, as she claimed, this power were used only for transitional periods, when exactly and under which part of the law the electoral arrangements put in place by the Secretary of State would be replaced by those decided by the proper and appropriate body, namely the Electoral Commission. Indeed, Clause 5 does not place any requirement on the Electoral Commission to review or sanction the Government's decisions. There will be no necessary revision of what are supposed to be transitional arrangements. With all due respect to the Electoral Commission, it seems possible that it could look at the arrangements for a local authority and assume that because the Secretary of State had implemented the proposals they must be workable. That seems a dangerous assumption. With much experience of government from all parties, I am all too well aware of the fact that proposals that come from Secretaries of State may not be workable, so an opportunity would be lost.
	I hope the Minister will realise that such changes need to be taken seriously and not rushed through, at least not without some consideration of what the proper—I emphasise "proper"—review procedures should be. I hope that she will be able to clear my mind on these issues so that I do not have to take the matter further. I beg to move.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market: My Lords, I have Amendments Nos. 42 to 45 in this group and can deal with them briefly because, like the amendment moved by the noble Lord, they concern implementation orders and transitional arrangements. In Committee, we still felt a certain confusion about exactly how the timetable would roll out and what provisions would be made for these arrangements. We have had some discussion and correspondence with the Minister, but this evening we have an opportunity to put some of these matters on the record.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I thought these amendments had been grouped separately but they have clearly been grouped together. What I am going to say may be slightly disjointed.
	I will start with the questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, and the effect of the amendments per se. If I am unable to give him a complete response to his question about the Electoral Commission, I assure him that I will write. However, I will do my best to respond to his question.
	The amendments seek to remove the ability of the Secretary of State to make certain provision within orders made under Clause 7 for structural change and Clause 10 for boundary change. First, were these amendments to be made to the Bill, it would not be possible to implement the structural change orders so that the transition from two-tier to single-tier was as smooth as possible for all involved. These amendments would obviously be detrimental to the local authorities involved in the restructuring process.
	Amendments Nos. 39 and 46 remove Clauses 11(4)(d) and 12, which provide the Secretary of State with the ability to include provision for electoral matters in an order made under Clause 7 for structural change or Clause 10 for boundary change. They would prevent the Secretary of State including provision in relation to the electoral matters of new unitary authorities—the number of councillors, the boundaries of wards or the election of a mayor or executive, for example. Clauses 11(4)(d) and 12 also allow the Secretary of State, where a wholly new authority is established, to appoint members of existing local authorities as members of the new local authority for a transitional period before the first elections are held, to appoint an executive for a transitional period and to provide for that wholly new authority to discharge functions during a transitional period.
	Amendment No. 46 would see Clause 12 removed completely. It is obviously important that we keep the whole of Clause 12, because it is vital that the Secretary of State is able to include provision in the Clause 7 orders for the membership and representational arrangements of new authorities, otherwise there simply would not be any people there to take the decisions. To remove the Secretary of State's ability to provide for these matters would mean that, in the case of wholly new authorities, there would be no one there to take key decisions. That is clearly not satisfactory at all.
	It is also important that the Secretary of State is able to include provision for electoral arrangements under Clause 12(1)(a) to (f). When we came to discuss the amendments of the noble Baroness, I noted that those provisions had not been removed. I am sure that this is because she also recognises the importance of being able to put in place transitional arrangements and provide for elections to the new local authorities. Were these provisions removed, wholly new local authorities could be established without any electoral arrangements—no wards, nothing. I understand what I think the noble Lord was saying—that he would prefer that these matters were put in place by an independent Electoral Commission. However, the commission was not able to guarantee that it would be able to put these arrangements in place before the new authorities were established.
	The noble Lord asked about the views of the Electoral Commission. From the exchanges on 25 September, we understand that, while it is broadly content, it would prefer the first elections for county unitaries to be in May 2009, which suggests that they would follow the new warding arrangements made by the commission. We will talk to the Electoral Commission about its concerns on those issues. I hope that will be helpful.
	We have made no decisions on these matters. We have just finished consulting on the approach to implementation, as noble Lords know, and it is a rather hefty document. However, I shall give an example of why we need to retain these powers. One scenario could be that elections are held for new district unitaries on current electoral arrangements in May 2008. The Electoral Commission supports this option, but has said it will not be in a position to complete reviews of the county unitaries until 2009 and of the district unitaries until 2010. Therefore, it is imperative that the Secretary of State can include provision for electoral arrangements within the Clause 7 order. In the example -0we have given, the Secretary of State would simply put in place the current electoral arrangements for the new authorities. Without Clause 12, she would be unable to do that, and implementation would have to wait until 2010.
	I am sure that noble Lords are aware that if we were to remove the ability of the Secretary of State to deal with these matters it would delay the implementation timetable. That goes against what we have consistently been told by local government, which is that it wants as speedy a progress towards restructuring as possible. By taking out Clause 12, we would be unable to deliver that on behalf of local government. The amendments make the implementation of new unitary authorities difficult and would not allow the transition to be as painless as possible. We have tried to learn from the experience of the restructuring in the 1990s.
	Amendments Nos. 42 to 45 are tabled in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott. Like the amendments in the previous group, they remove the ability of the Secretary of State to make certain provisions within orders made under Clause 7 for structural change stemming from a boundary change. I shall explain why Clause 12 is necessary.
	Amendment No. 42 removes Clause 12(1)(f) to (k), so that the Secretary of State would be unable to include provision in a Clause 7 or Clause 10 order for the order of retirement of councillors and the election of a mayor or executive. In the case of a wholly new authority, it would also prevent the Secretary of State making appointments and providing for the discharge of functions during a transitional period. Amendment No. 43 inserts a new paragraph into Clause 12(1) which allows the Secretary of State to specify the length of any transitional period.
	Removing Clause 12(1)(f) would not allow the Secretary of State to make provision for the retirement of councillors. Removing Clause 12(1)(g) and (h) would not allow the Secretary of State to provide for the election of a mayor or an executive for the new authority. Therefore, where the bidding authority has requested a mayoral model, we would not be able to provide for it. For example, Bedford has a mayor, and Bedford Borough Council has stated that it wishes to retain the mayoral model for the new unitary authority it is proposing. If a unitary Bedford were to be created, the amendment would prevent us being able to provide for the mayoral model to continue in Bedford. We would be unable to provide for the election of a mayor.
	Clause 12(1)(i) allows the Secretary of State, in the case of a wholly new authority, to appoint existing councillors to represent the new local authority for a transitional period. Removing Clause 12(1)(j) would not allow the appointment of an executive to a wholly new authority to take decisions during the transitional period. Those provisions will be needed if the Secretary of State is to establish a wholly new authority so that members can start to prepare for reorganisation before there are elections for that authority. This will avoid a potential "dead period" between the implementation orders being made and the first elections.
	Clause 12(1)(k) provides that where the Secretary of State establishes a wholly new authority, she may also provide for the appointment of an executive for a transitional period. Again, the Government believe it is important that an executive is established to discharge particular functions prior to the first elections to wholly new authorities being held.
	As I have stated, the amendments to Clause 12 would make the implementation of new unitary authorities difficult and the implementation process difficult for everyone concerned. These are technical matters. In a later amendment we will discuss transitional arrangements a little more. I hope that I have made it clear to noble Lords that their amendments would have a devastating effect on the planned process of implementation.

Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her explanation. I do not have any particular difficulty with the need for interim arrangements. If the decisions are taken I accept that something has to be done. I am not yet certain about the arrangements for the end of the interim arrangements. There does not seem to be any definition of that. At what time and at what point does the Electoral Commission reassume its proper role and do these things as a result of proper study, rather than as an ad hoc arrangement on the basis of existing arrangements? After all, we have created a whole structure of new arrangements which are different, and one might have thought—perish the thought—that some new electoral arrangements might be more appropriate than those which existed prior to the change. In fact, I would have thought that was a sort of sine qua non of the whole process.
	I accept that we are in a difficult situation. The noble Baroness will be prepared to hear that that is the case. I shall look with great care at what she has said, but I think that—I make a sort of request at this stage—we need to look carefully at the longer term strategic interests on this issue. Therefore, I am happy to withdraw the amendment at this stage, but perhaps with the assurance that we could all look at it again before Third Reading with a view to getting some sort of conclusion which would satisfy everybody.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I am very happy to give the noble Lord that assurance. I can give him a little more detail. I will put this in writing as well because these are important points about the relationship between the Electoral Commission and the changes that are made. Clause 12(5) places the Electoral Commission under a duty to consider whether an electoral review is necessary as soon as practicable after an order is made under Clause 7. Therefore, if the independent commission wishes to review the electoral arrangements put in place by the Secretary of State, it will direct the independent Boundary Committee to do that. That takes us a bit further into that part of the process. I shall read what the noble Lord has said very carefully, and we will write to noble Lords to make sure that as much detail as possible about the evolution of that procedure is on the record.

Lord Dixon-Smith: My Lords, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	[Amendment No. 40 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]

Baroness Scott of Needham Market: moved Amendment No. 40A:
	Clause 11, page 8, line 40, at end insert—
	"( ) Where a single tier of local government for an area whose boundaries are coterminous with those of an existing county council or closely aligned to them, a new district council for the area shall be established."

Baroness Scott of Needham Market: My Lords, in the amendment I seek to return to the question of continuing authorities. In Committee we had a very brief exchange on the question of authorities that would be formed after restructuring along existing boundaries. That really means county councils turning into unitary authorities covering the county area. The noble Baroness was very concise and clear that those would be wholly new authorities.
	The problem is that a difference is clearly emerging between the Government's intention, as stated clearly by the noble Baroness, and what is actually happening on the ground. From a number of areas, clear evidence is emerging of what I can describe as a county takeover. I know that my noble friend Lady Maddock will express concern about what is happening in Northumberland, but I am also receiving reports from other parts of the country—Cornwall and so on—about what is happening. Obviously, this is a difficult time and it is a complicated process. In their document setting out their approach to implementation, the Government have stated that the transitional authority will be a county-based authority. I understand why that is happening, but the problem is that counties are seeing that as a platform for launching a complete takeover. There is evidence that they are not giving district council representation as much precedence as the Government would like.
	I would be very interested to hear from the noble Baroness how she thinks that the Government will respond if clear concerns emerge from local areas that the district authorities, which may have been extremely co-operative in the process, are being frozen out at the implementation stage. Can she also confirm that under the implementation document, which was published fairly recently, the chief executive will be newly appointed but there is no requirement for other officers to be? That is another area where there may well be a complete county takeover, because it is relatively straightforward to subsume a lot of district functions into existing county functions. The tendency would be to keep the same county chief officers and some very good district officers may be lost in the process. If these are to be new authorities with new cultures and practices, it is important that they bring together the best of all the component authorities, rather than just be the continuation of one.
	Finally, having read carefully through the implementation document, something mystifies me which I hope that the noble Baroness can clear up for me. Paragraph 33 states that the Secretary of State cannot appoint councillors to a transitional authority, but paragraph 35 states that where there is no agreement and the LGA has not been able to broker an agreement, the Secretary of State will make the appointments. I am not clear whether the Secretary of State can or cannot make those appointments and, if so, under exactly what circumstances.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, briefly, I support what the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said. The transitional arrangements will be absolutely fraught. Not only will we have councillors who may be losing their seats and their role but a significant number of staff on these authorities will find themselves either bidding for their own jobs or looking for work elsewhere. This is an extremely sensitive area and we must be careful that we do not upset too many people on the way. I guess that once most people see the new authorities coming up they will understand that there will be very substantial changes. How those changes are handled and how the districts relate to the counties will be important in deciding whether they work satisfactorily.

Baroness Maddock: My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Scott. Our experience in Northumberland is precisely along the lines that she indicated. In a later amendment, I shall expand a little further for the Minister, because we are in need of help, please.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, this amendment allows us to talk briefly about the importance of having a proper implementation process. The noble Baroness referred to the implementation process involving the best of rural authorities and the people who need to be involved so that it is not a county or a district takeover. It is really important. In approaching finding the right process for implementation and working with the expert group available to us, we made sure that we had a process which people were clear about and could sign up to. It is clear on practically every page that we expect councillors to involve their local regional stakeholders and partners in their consideration. This has to be the basis of dialogue with the potentially affected councillors. There is no question that anyone should be taking over anyone. I shall come on to explain why the notion of the new authority is so important and why we have this running alongside the notion of a continuing authority for the sake of convenience.
	Amendment No. 40A requires the Secretary of State to create new districts for all single tier authorities created under Clause 7, which obviously would prevent the Secretary of State from making orders for new single tier authorities to be county councils. They would all have to be new district councils, not new county councils. I know that these are probing amendments essentially, but the effect would be that in Cornwall we would have to create a unitary Cornwall district council. This would have the same boundaries as the county of Cornwall and would carry out the same functions as a new Cornwall county council, but would be called Cornwall district council. I am not entirely certain that that would be very popular, but that is what it would do. We believe that new unitaries should serve as either county councils or district councils, whatever is the most appropriate for the area.
	We have always been clear—I said this in Committee and in letters to noble Lords—that the current restructuring of local government is about creating new authorities; that is, authorities with new functions and responsibilities. Looking at the proposals, it was very interesting just how innovatively people were thinking about the role of overview and scrutiny, the ways of engaging people and how to make information accessible to them. There are some genuinely innovative opportunities here. Revitalised local leadership and governance will help. Any unitary authority established as part of the restructuring process therefore will be a new authority in any commonly understood meaning of the word. Nowhere will the unitary authority, or how it serves the local people, simply be a continuation of what went before.
	However, we wanted to address in very practical terms, which came out of the process with the expert group, the necessity of keeping the transition process as simple and cost-effective as possible. We want to keep down the costs of transition to the benefit of everyone—local councils and local people alike. Where an existing authority covers the same area as the proposed new unitary authority, implementation arrangements will be more straightforward if the new unitary authority is treated, in technical terms, as a continuation of that existing district or county council. It should not mean that a county council should see that status as giving it licence to take over. That is not the issue or the point. It is about securing a process which reduces the amount of massive fundamental changes that have to be made. We would want to be able to treat county councils as continuing where appropriate. The amendment would stop us doing that.
	We have come at it in this way because the experience of the 1990s strongly supports this way of doing things with less disruption and a smoother transition, which is obviously what local government organisations want. To create a new district council in a county council area requires the abolition of the county council, the establishment of a new district council and the transfer of all functions, which is a much more elaborate process and additional work for everyone concerned. Bearing in mind what the noble Lord, Lord Dixon-Smith, said earlier, when we are trying to minimise disruption and unnecessary work, this would be additional work for no practical gain. It would also mean that during the transitional period there would be a county council operating alongside a shadow district council covering exactly the same area. We would have a duplication of effort and costs.
	This is not about the merger of councils. Rather, these devices will ensure a smooth transition and are not an excuse or fig leaf for doing anything other than what the implementation documentation document is quite clear about. These are discussions between partners in which the districts will be equal partners in the process of finding a route to a new authority. It is all about creating something new. We do not believe that removing the ability of the Secretary of State to use continuing county councils would be in the best interests of anyone involved.
	I turn to the specific questions put to me. I was asked whether the chief executive would have to be a new appointment. We certainly propose that there should be a new chief executive appointment through open competition, but we also propose that where councils wish for other senior directors to be so appointed, they too can be appointed through open competition. It is a choice that can be made locally. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, asked whether the Secretary of State could appoint councillors to continuing authorities. The Secretary of State cannot appoint councillors to transitional authorities, but he can specify the composition of the joint committee responsible for transition. If the noble Baroness looks again at the two paragraphs, I think she will see the distinction. However, I shall make sure that the point is made clear.
	I hope that the position is now clear. However, I want to put on the record that this implementation document is an important working tool which has to be observed. A great deal of hard work went into the process of making the document as clear as possible, and it is important that it is taken seriously by everyone involved in the process.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, does the term "open competition" mean the introduction of a completely new recruitment process or will these jobs be ring-fenced? Inevitably, one or two chief executives will be put out of their positions, as well as other directors. Under most circumstances you would expect it to be a limited competition among them until one or other is accepted. However, it sounds as if the process will be one of encouraging people to come in from elsewhere—one of those head hunter operations. Can the noble Baroness clarify this?

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, my understanding is that it would be as the noble Baroness has described; that is, a genuine open competition in which people could put forward their names in the usual way.

Baroness Hamwee: The noble Baroness said that it would be a matter of local choice whether other officers would be subject to a recruitment process or simply transferred. In her letter of 1 October she stated that,
	"where a new authority is, in technical terms, a continuing authority, steps can be taken"—
	I emphasise the word "can"—
	"such as recruiting new senior managers ... to show that the new authority is not simply a 'takeover'".
	Presumably, therefore, if steps can be taken, steps may not be taken. As I have said, the noble Baroness talked about this being a matter for local choice, but it would be helpful to understand how the choice is arrived at. This is something that I have had the benefit of hearing the Minister explain privately by way of the committees which will be set up. Those who take the lead in those committees—the noble Baroness looks puzzled; I am thinking of the committees in which the authorities concerned will have some representation—will, I assume, be the ones to take the lead in this process. However, that begs the question: who will take the decisions on those committees? Given that this is such a sensitive area, an explanation of this in the House rather than just privately and in a letter is really quite important.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, is this my letter of 28 September?

Baroness Hamwee: Yes, my Lords, it is the same letter.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, we say there that,
	"even where the new authority is, in technical terms, a continuing authority, steps can be taken—such as recruiting new senior managers and holding elections—to show that the new authority is not simply a 'takeover' by the existing members and officers of the bidding authority".
	The noble Baroness is right to say that steps can be taken and because this is a thoroughly devolved process it would seem illogical not to allow that option. I do not want to flood noble Lords with even more letters but, as we are a little further down the implementation process, it might be that we can take some advice.
	The local choice is certainly for other members of the management team—the ones we are now talking about—and can be exercised by the joint committee which is responsible for implementation. The point the noble Baroness makes is well made, but that is essentially part and parcel of the design of the scheme. I shall seek to find out to what extent local authorities are even at a point where they may be considering some of the implications for those decisions.

Baroness Maddock: My Lords, perhaps I may intervene before the Minister sits down. This is one of the issues that has arisen in Northumberland. The county, obviously, would very much prefer that it was just the chief executive and maybe one or two officers but, because of the position of their staff, the districts want to have some of the jobs that will come with the new authority and would like there to be more open jobs at senior level. There is a conflict here. The guidance says that where you have a transitional authority it is expected that the county will take the lead. Obviously it does—and people, in a sense, respect that—but if the lead is taken by the county and does not include enough people from the districts having and a voice, the county can do what it likes. Our experience, which I will explain later, is that that is what is happening, and people are very unhappy about it, even though they are trying to work together for the good of Northumberland.

Baroness Scott of Needham Market: My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords who have joined in this short debate. I have a great deal of sympathy for the Minister in trying to get to grips with the complexities of moving this agenda forward in a way which is relatively speedy, not too administratively burdensome and not too slow. I can understand all that but, nevertheless, if this is wrongly implemented many of the benefits of creating a new authority could be lost. It would be a great shame if, having undergone this great transitional period, the full benefits were not reaped afterwards.
	I understand fully that it is the Government's intention that these implementation committees should be joint committees. Nevertheless, I hope they will recognise that the temptation for the authority which is in the lead—we have referred to counties but it need not be—to take advantage of the position it has been given will be very great indeed. I hope the Minister will recognise that and consider ways of perhaps keeping an eye on what is going to ensure that the spirit of the Government's intentions, which have been made very clear by the noble Baroness, are adhered to. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Andrews: moved Amendment No. 41:
	Clause 11, page 9, line 5, leave out "not currently a local government area" and insert "currently outside all local government areas"
	On Question, amendment agreed to.
	Clause 12 [Provision relating to membership etc of authorities]:
	[Amendments Nos. 42 to 46 not moved.]
	Clause 15 [Incidental etc provision in orders or regulations]:

Baroness Andrews: moved Amendment No. 47:
	Clause 15, page 11, line 23, after "made" insert "at any time"
	On Question, amendment agreed to.
	Clause 21 [Pre-commencement invitations etc]:

Baroness Hanham: moved Amendment No. 48:
	Clause 21, leave out Clause 21

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, this is a simple amendment. It would remove the powers in Clause 21 to allow invitations that had been issued and, more to the point, decisions that had been made on restructuring to take place until after the Bill had been enacted.
	Clause 21 bizarrely says that any proposal made before the enactment of the Bill should be taken to be constrained by the same measures in other clauses that what I will call the "post-commencement invitations" will be under. Therefore Clause 21 shows that the Government's reasoning is not very sensible, and does not follow what we would expect the Bill to do. I and other noble Lords have moved many amendments this afternoon, any of which could be included in the Bill. If the provisions of any of Part 1 were to change—for example, the power to hold a referendum that I suggest, or the power in my previous amendments to widen consultation—any measures taken previously to the Bill would result in a much lesser deal for local electorates, and could even mean that some councils had acted outside the law as it would be applied retrospectively.
	Amendment No. 28 would remove Clause 21, the effect being that any current invitations could not be enacted until the Bill itself has passed through Parliament. There was something circular about the Minister's arguments in Committee that the provisions included in Clause 21 are not retrospective. First, her argument ignored the fact that a retrospective provision does not simply make something valid that was not lawful or valid at the time. It can also make something invalid or unlawful. Amendments made to the Bill could change the make-up of Part 1 so as to render some actions being taken now unlawful in the future. That would be retrospective, and to allow for such an application prior to the Bill going through Parliament is contrary to the proper and appropriate passage of law through Parliament. Noble Lords should not have to sanction that. I beg to move.

Baroness Maddock: My Lords, my name is attached to the amendment, although in fact I put the same amendment in quite separately. I wanted to bring to the attention of the House what has happened since there have been pre-commencement invitations and how they are working out, and it seemed logical to put that under Clause 21. That may not be exactly right, and I intervened earlier in the day. As I said then, I am a borough councillor in Berwick-upon-Tweed as well as a county councillor in Northumberland, so I am getting this on two fronts.
	I want to explain what is happening on the ground before the Bill becomes law, and to ask the Government how they had expected these matters to proceed and what commitment they have to dealing with what many of us see as a lack of democracy and transparency that is unfolding as the process takes on a bit of momentum of its own. That is clear from the discussions we have already had on the Floor of the House tonight. The Bill has not passed all its stages, and yet an awful lot of it is already happening.
	To go back to the original invitation, there were two proposals that people could sign up to: the possibility of having a unitary government of some sort in Northumberland, and the possibility of the districts working closer together. There are six districts in Northumberland that come under the county council, and originally they were interested in enhanced working, partly because Northumberland is a large geographical area. The south of the county is much more urban and densely populated while the other part is rural and people did not want to lose their voice. However, as matters unfolded, the county council decided that it wanted one, huge unitary authority for Northumberland. When that decision was reached, the district councils—across parties—agreed that they would look at an alternative proposal for two unitary councils, one to represent the more densely populated urban areas in the south and the other to represent north Northumberland, which is a rural area. As I indicated earlier, that had been discussed when a referendum was held in Northumberland on whether it should have an elected regional assembly. In it, residents made it clear—there was a 51 per cent turnout—that they wanted two unitary authorities.
	However, after the processes that we discussed earlier had been gone through, involving the county and district councils and the stakeholders, the Government accepted that both proposals met the criteria, so both were put forward. Even the county council was forced to support both proposals, because it could not vote through the proposal for a unitary authority alone. The Government said that both proposals met the criteria, but when they came back with their view of what they were "minded to propose"—which is the phrase that I think that I should use at this stage—they came down in favour of one unitary authority in Northumberland. That is the current position. A judicial review is taking place, part of the basis for which is people finding it difficult to accept that they are going through the process without the law having been made. In addition, many opinion polls and surveys show that residents who use services do not want one unitary authority in Northumberland. The Minister can read in the judicial review documents the letter which explains the position in detail.
	Nevertheless, the district councils realise that the process is advancing apace and that they cannot stand back and not take part. With good heart, they are trying to ensure that the best of what they wanted to happen under their proposal for two unitary authorities is included in the proposal for a single unitary authority. For that reason, the county council and district councils across Northumberland want shadow elections to take place as soon as possible to make the process democratic. That view is shared across all councils and parties.
	The guidance for embarking on a transitional process has now been issued— because the county is keeping its own boundaries—and that is where the problems have arisen. The Government issued guidance on how we should proceed. We spoke earlier about how the process was meant not to be a take-over but a transition. The guidance contains instructions that state that the joint committee that oversees the initial stages of the transformation is supposed to reflect the geographical nature of the area and be roughly in proportion to political representation across the county.
	A bone of contention for us, which we are unlikely ever to win, is the fact that the number of councillors at county and district level in Northumberland will decrease from 306 to 67 when the proposals are implemented. The Labour Party has about 35 per cent of councillors; the Liberal Democrats have 30 per cent; the Conservatives have 26 per cent; and others have about 9 per cent. However, representation on the joint committee has been based on that in the county council, because it is the lead authority. It contains 10 Labour representatives and four from opposition parties. It has taken the whole of its executive, which includes its leader and deputy leader, and only one member from the four rural districts. It is therefore completely biased towards the southern end of the county. It is allowing the leaders of the Liberal Democrat and Conservative groups on the county council only to be non-voting in the joint body. It will have one member from each of the district councils, of which Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives control two respectively. So there is no way that this is a political representation and neither is it geographical.
	There have been discussions about this. The LGA has tried to have some influence and I understand that civil servants have talked to the councillors. As I stand here now, I do not know whether that has had any effect—but it is a double whammy for the people of Northumberland. The choice that they thought they wanted they could not get and now they seem to have been taken over. Did the Government envisage this sort of thing happening? If they did, what do they think they can do about it?
	The same problem is happening with the staff. A joint staff committee is being set up and the chief executive is in charge of it. He wants four or five senior members from each of the districts to be down in county hall a couple of days a week. Berwick borough council serves 26,000 people, so if four or five of our officers are taken I do not know how we are going to carry on delivering services—and there is no money to back-fill in for the staff when they are not there. Alnwick district council is in the same situation.
	Whatever the guidance says, I put on record what is happening in Northumberland—and I hope that we can get some help from the Government to ensure that we are not completely disenfranchised in Berwick. If you look at a map of Britain Berwick is in the top north-east corner; if you look at a map of the north-east region it is in the top north-east corner; and if you look at a map of Northumberland, it is in the top north-east corner. We are 50 miles from Morpeth, where we have our meetings—we are always on the edge—and as the smallest council involved we are finding very difficult to come to terms with what is happening. We badly need some help and support. That also goes for Alnwick, which is another small district council.
	I hope that I have not laboured the point too much. There is much more that I could say, but that is what is actually happening—because we have started the process before the Bill has become law. Although I understand that we want to do this quickly, as my noble friend Lady Scott said, the practicalities of it are not working out, even as the Minister and her Government would like it to happen. I hope that I can get some support tonight for some help, but I understand that the Minister may want to go away and think about this and come back to me and colleagues in Northumberland with help on these matters.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, we have heard two sorts of passion in the past half an hour—one to wreck the Bill with a simple wrecking amendment and the other from the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock. She is such a powerful advocate of what may be a remote corner of the north-east and of Northumberland, but she does it proud—and what she has put on record tonight will serve a purpose. I listened intently to what she said.
	Before I deal with some of the issues that the noble Baroness raised, on the general principle she will not be surprised that I cannot accept the amendment, which would simply mean that the current round of restructuring was brought to an end and that all the effort that the councils had made in putting forward their proposals was wasted. In this Chamber we see eye to eye most of the time but sometimes we do not—and in accepting the amendment we would abort the restructuring process.
	Clause 21 is sensible and necessary and simply means that we can respond to the wishes of local government and run the invitation and the Bill process in parallel. It ensures that there can be no doubt that a proposal received prior to commencement of the part can be implemented after commencement. I take the point that local councillors, while the Bill is outstanding, are bound to have concerns—so it is much better that we proceed quickly to ensure that this is not the case.
	When we debated this clause in Committee, I said that it was not retrospective. The noble Baroness quoted me accurately. It does not make valid something which when it was done was not valid. However, noble Lords will be aware that judicial review proceedings have been brought by Shrewsbury and Congleton district councils in relation to the current restructuring process and the issue of the meaning and effect of Clause 21 was before the court. We expect judgment in those cases shortly and it would be inappropriate for me to comment further at this time. As we have said many times in our discussions with local government about restructuring, the consistent message from councils was to get it underway and completed as soon as possible in order to prevent a period of debilitation, blight and disruption. We were aware—noble Lords have spoken about the effect on various areas—that this process would create anxiety and disquiet among local government. There will inevitably be tensions when there are proposals to abolish local authorities. That is why the approach that we followed was designed to minimise the way in which those tensions might foment. The invitation was issued in October to allow sufficient time for councils to develop proposals, to allow for consultation and to proceed towards implementation as quickly as possible after Royal Assent. So we are doing only what local authorities asked of us—to decide if we are going to go ahead with restructuring and if so to press ahead as quickly as possible.
	The invitation was issued ahead of these provisions of the Bill under the Secretary of State's common law powers. Those common law powers derive from the Crown's status as a corporation sole. They are often relied on as a legal basis for government action. Indeed, in responding to a question from the noble Lord, Lord Lester, about the Ram doctrine some years ago, my noble and learned friend Lady Scotland referenced some of the situations where common law powers form the basis of governmental actions. These include entering into contracts or employing staff. So we have done nothing unlawful in issuing an invitation ahead of the Bill and all this clause seeks to do is make it very clear that it is immaterial whether the Secretary of State issues an invitation, or guidance, or receives or consults on proposals received prior to commencement; she can implement such proposals after commencement of this part.
	I turn to the situation in Northumberland. As the noble Baroness said with regard to the discussions on the future of Northumberland, in the decisions in July our judgment was that having regard to all the information that was available, the district's proposal for two unitaries was not reasonably likely to achieve the outcomes specified in the criteria and therefore should not proceed towards implementation. The proposal for a single unitary was judged as reasonably likely to achieve the criteria. Here we are minded to implement the proposal if and when the Bill is passed. But as we move to the next step in the implementation process we set out in the document which has now finished its consultation process one of the fundamental things that we said; namely, that we should like to take the opportunity to encourage all potentially affected local authorities to begin work together without delay. Clearly, the earlier the dialogue, the more likelihood there is of getting agreement on some difficult issues and reaching a successful conclusion. Therefore, we stress that in areas such as Northumberland, all councils need to work together on this fairly. We believe that a joint committee should be formed of representatives of all the existing local authorities in the area concerned.
	I said earlier that the implementation document was a living document. We are consulting on it. If the sorts of scenario emerge that the noble Baroness described, we shall no doubt learn about them in the consultation process. However, it is very important that she has put on the record what she feels is happening because we need to know how local authorities are approaching this. Clearly, the guidance is designed to be fair.

Baroness Maddock: My Lords, I thank the Minister for giving way. Various people in Northumberland have responded. As the Liberal Democrat group, we responded in detail and some of the things that I mentioned are in that document, which was a response to the implementation.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, that is useful, because it proves my point that the consultation process will flesh out exactly how people are approaching joint implementation teams. Our officials have been engaged, and we are aware of what is going on in various parts of the country, because we are in an intense period of consultation. We will go on in the next few weeks to meet all the joint implementation teams, including in Northumberland. Officials were there quite recently. We are keeping a very close eye on the process. I am very glad to know that people are getting on with it and that they want to proceed quickly. Clearly, it would be remiss of us if we were not to be closely following that process.
	If there was such a situation, and it was so serious that we felt this had to happen, the Secretary of State could specify the composition of a joint committee in the implementation order. Where there are different views locally, it could be that the Secretary of State herself would decide, having regard to all local views. That remains a power that is open to her. I will finish there, because I have no further detail to add. It may help the noble Baroness if I put that in writing for her.

Baroness Hanham: My Lords, this has been a wonderful discussion, because it has highlighted absolutely without any doubt the problems that there have been over the way in which this has been implemented. Before there has been any legislation, and before anyone has had an opportunity to discuss the matter in detail, the proposals of the Bill have effectively been implemented, in a way that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, has pointed out, is causing endless difficulties.
	There must be some reason for going through legislation in both Houses. One of those reasons must be to iron out the wrinkles to see where the problems are likely to be and to listen to people who are going to have to implement the legislation. Because that has not happened here, we are now getting all the problems that we are seeing in Northumberland and all the other unitaries that are being considered by the Secretary of State at the moment. In each one of them, as we said earlier, there are problems. It seems to me that so much of this is happening because there has not been time to give proper thought to how this would be implemented and whether it should be implemented at all. The great question mark is whether any of this part of the Bill is of any value whatever. The removal of Clause 21 would be enormously helpful, because it would take away the rights and the powers of the Secretary of State to do what she has done, which is to start implementing legislation for which she has no authority. The Minister has said that she has used common-law powers. That is a fig leaf to hide behind when there is legislation coming forward that brings all of that in.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Maddock, has presented this absolutely perfectly. She has given all the reasons why this should not have been done in the way in which it has been done. She has given all the reasons why judicial review is going to be carried out on this and is being carried out already in relation to Cheshire, Shrewsbury and Congleton, and why no doubt it will happen in relation to other authorities as well. The processes have not been ironed out in Parliament—they have not been ironed out properly—and people are trying to implement them on the back of documents coming from the Government that we have had no chance to discuss or even consider. I will not press the amendment tonight, but I hope that the Minister will have understood from all that has been said that this process has been really lamentable. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
	Clause 23 [Definitions for purposes of Chapter 1]:
	[Amendments Nos. 49 to 51 not moved.]
	Clause 33 [Resolution for whole-council elections: requirements]:

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: moved Amendment No. 52:
	Clause 33, page 19, line 30, after "meeting" insert "which is"

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, the Government are bringing forward a number of technical amendments to Part 2. My noble friend wrote to noble Lords on 1 October 2007 setting out why these amendments are required. I will briefly cover some of the key points for the record.
	First, we are bringing forward an amendment on resolution periods in response to concerns raised during Committee. Part 2 contains resolution periods in which local authorities can resolve to change their scheme of elections. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, tabled an amendment to extend the resolution periods set out in the Bill from three months to six months.
	We have considered the points raised and believe that the proposal to extend the resolution periods will strengthen the Bill. We therefore propose an amendment broadly along the lines of that put forward in Committee by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. We are, however, making one slight change. Her amendment proposed that resolution periods should begin on 1 June rather than 1 October. Our amendment proposes that the resolution periods set out in the Bill should begin on the day after the council's annual meeting and should end on 31 December. The reason for this is that, as the House is aware, Clause 60 provides for local government elections to be moved to the date of the European elections, which take place in the second week of June. If the resolution periods ran from 1 June in a year when the local government elections were moved, this could result in a resolution being passed by an outgoing council just before an election. That would clearly be undesirable. Linking the resolution periods to the annual meeting, which will always take place after the election in an election year, will avoid a local government election taking place during a resolution period.
	Amendments Nos. 55, 56, 60, 64 and 65 to Clauses 33, 38 and 40 make the necessary amendments to Part 2. We are also introducing a number of technical amendments to these clauses—Amendments Nos. 52, 53, 57, 58, 61 and 62—to ensure that notice of the specially convened meeting at which a resolution will be passed is given, in line with the existing provisions in the Local Government Act 1972 and, in Amendments Nos. 54, 59 and 63, to clarify that all members of a council can vote on the resolutions; that is, all the councillors and the mayor or members of the directly elected executive, where these models exist.
	To ensure consistency between Parts 2 and 3, we are amending Clause 64 in Part 3—Amendments Nos. 96, 97, 99 to 101 and 110 to 113—to extend the resolution periods, ensure that notice of the specially convened meeting is given and clarify who can vote on the resolutions. We have also made similar amendments to Schedule 5.
	We are bringing forward Amendments Nos. 71 to 76 to Clause 59, again responding to concerns raised by noble Lords during Committee about the provisions for changing the names of electoral areas. Electoral areas are district wards and county divisions. While there was support for the general thrust of Clause 59 to devolve the decisions on changes to the names of electoral areas to local authorities, concerns were raised about ensuring that appropriate measures were in place to prevent changes from taking place too often and without local debate. A number of amendments were tabled against Clause 59 during Committee. We have reflected on those amendments and the concerns raised by noble Lords and have brought forward amendments in this group. Amendment No. 71 requires a local authority to consult such persons as it considers appropriate on any proposed name change prior to a resolution being passed. This will ensure that there is the opportunity for local debate on any proposed name change.
	In Amendments Nos. 72 to 75, we propose that the resolution to change the name of an electoral area must be passed by a two-thirds majority. This is in line with part of an amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. I am sure that we are all sorry that he is unwell and unable to be in his place to hear me explain this amendment. We agree with the noble Lord that a requirement for a two-thirds majority is a useful safeguard, which will require a strong case to be made for any change in name to gain the necessary support. This will provide greater stability so that the names of electoral areas are not changed too often and without the support of a significant majority of councillors.
	We are also proposing a technical amendment, Amendment No. 76, to clarify that a mayor or members of a directly elected executive can vote on the resolution that I have just described to change the name of an electoral area where those models exist. The amendments respond to concerns raised by Members of the Committee during Committee stage and I beg to move.

Baroness Hamwee: My Lords, I thank the Minister and the Government for taking notice of a number of points made from these Benches and elsewhere at the last stage. I understand with regard to the resolution period that the Government would not want to see a controversial resolution made eve of poll. However, if I came across any of our councillors suggesting that they should be spending eve of poll doing this sort of thing, I would tell them what I thought of them.
	The proposal about changing the name of an area is also welcome. I am also glad to hear that the point made by my noble friend Lord Greaves about a two-thirds majority has been taken. I have written down "welcome". I do not want to purport to read his mind totally because he may have reservations about the way that it has been done, but I was glad to hear acceptance of that point.
	There are provisions in three different places for members of the council for various purposes, including an elected mayor or elected executive. It says a lot about confusion with the language that when I read that members included the mayor and elected executive I thought that the Bill must mean the mayor and the elected executive and started to write some very furious notes, but I think that it means "include" in the normal and natural meaning of the term.
	I will mention now, so that the Minister is aware of it, that I was comforted when I found Amendments Nos. 117 and 118—it is very sad to be comforted by such things is it not? Those provisions show me that it is explicit that a reference to a member excludes the elected mayor. We will come to those amendments in a future group. I will ask at that point whether the way that those are dealt with means that the Secretary of State can change at will who is in and out of the definition of members. That is for another day. I am assuming that the officials, being very thorough, have done a great trawl of the Bill and could, if we asked, advise us who is a member for any given purpose. A little note about whether the elected executive—a mayor, directly elected leader or whatever—falls within or outside of the definition of member could be very useful for authorities.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for those comments and for the advance notice of her question. I commend the amendments to the House.

On Question, amendment agreed to.

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: moved Amendments Nos. 53 to 56:
	Clause 33, page 19, line 30, after "purpose" insert "of deciding the resolution with notice of the object"
	Clause 33, page 19, line 32, at end insert—
	"( ) In subsection (3) the reference to the members of the council includes—
	(a) in a case where the council are operating a mayor and cabinet executive, the elected mayor of the council;(b) in a case where the council are operating an elected executive, the members of the elected executive of the council."
	Clause 33, page 19, line 37, leave out "1 October" and insert "the day after that council's annual meeting"
	Clause 33, page 20, line 3, leave out "1 October" and insert "the day after that council's annual meeting"
	On Question, amendments agreed to.
	Clause 38 [Resolution for elections by halves: requirements]:

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: moved Amendments Nos. 57 to 60:
	Clause 38, page 21, line 32, after "meeting" insert "which is"
	Clause 38, page 21, line 32, after "purpose" insert "of deciding the resolution with notice of the object"
	Clause 38, page 21, line 34, at end insert—
	"( ) In subsection (3) the reference to the members of the council includes—
	(a) in a case where the council are operating a mayor and cabinet executive, the elected mayor of the council;(b) in a case where the council are operating an elected executive, the members of the elected executive of the council."
	Clause 38, page 21, line 36, leave out "1 October" and insert "the day after that council's annual meeting"
	On Question, amendments agreed to.
	Clause 40 [Resolution for elections by thirds: requirements]:

Baroness Morgan of Drefelin: moved Amendments Nos. 61 to 65:
	Clause 40, page 22, line 20, after "meeting" insert "which is"
	Clause 40, page 22, line 20, after "purpose" insert "of deciding the resolution with notice of the object"
	Clause 40, page 22, line 22, at end insert—
	"( ) In subsection (3) the reference to the members of the council includes—
	(a) in a case where the council are operating a mayor and cabinet executive, the elected mayor of the council;(b) in a case where the council are operating an elected executive, the members of the elected executive of the council."
	Clause 40, page 22, line 25, leave out "1 October" and insert "the day after that council's annual meeting"
	Clause 40, page 22, line 28, leave out "1 October" and insert "the day after that council's annual meeting"
	On Question, amendments agreed to.

Baroness Andrews: My Lords, I beg to move that consideration on Report be now adjourned.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
	House adjourned at 9.59 pm.